Part 003 - Good Riddance to Bad Rubbish *

John Smith was a parasite covered in rose-colored, fluffy toys. The pink stuffed animals that draped his naked body made him seem even more obscene than the serial killer he was. He slept peacefully, not even snoring.

Doctor Death wafted into the bedroom and hovered over him, gesturing for Sean the Vampire to get on with the retribution intended for him.

Sean hesitated. It felt wrong to kill a sleeping naked man, somehow unfair.

Sean looked around the bedroom. Next to the bed sat a wheelchair. In a corner stood several canes. The components of a black tuxedo littered the floor. An empty bottle of vodka and a water glass stood on a table by an overstuffed easy chair.

Too much time passed for Doctor Death. He wanted to see Sean rip the serial killer apart. He wanted Sean to sever the bastard’s head from his neck. He thought Sean spent too much time thinking.

Doctor Death entered John Smith’s body at the base of his exposed spine and spread his molecules throughout the man’s cells. John Smith shivered. The ghost moved into John’s brain, hitting his pain centers.

Smith screamed, clutched his head, rolled over, and moved to the edge of the bed. Doctor Death left his head and floated before him.

“You again,” said John. “Will I never be free of you?”

“You will be tonight,” said Doctor Death. “Meet my friend, Sean.”

John looked over his shoulder. He grinned when he saw Sean.

“So the burned marshmallow spook found a stooge,” said John. He stood, hobbled around the bed, and held out his hand to Sean.

Sean grasped the man by the back of the wrist and pulled it to his nose. He sniffed, closing his eyes as if he were checking the bouquet of fine wine.

John watched him without pulling away, swaying on unsteady legs.

Sean led John to the wheelchair and helped him to sit. He locked gazes with John.

“Don’t hypnotize him,” said Doctor Death, “he doesn’t deserve such kindness.” The ghost swooped between Sean and Smith breaking the contact of their minds. Sean fell onto the bed, rolling over and burying his head into the pink stuffed animals.

“Treat him like meals on wheels, you wuss.” In his agitation with Sean, Doctor Death fluctuated like heat waves on hot tarmac.

“The crows have finally come to bring me home,” said John. He looked from Sean to Doctor Death and laughed.

“You may rightly call me Death’s messenger,” said the ghost, “for I have brought Him to devour your filthy soul.”

“I have no fear of Death, and I have no fear of you and especially not him.” John gestured to the prone and still Sean.

“It’s my fault,” said Doctor Death, “I have not set the stage properly.”

Doctor Death vaporized and seeped into John Smith’s head once again. He was not capable of moving things (even though he kept trying), but he could take over the essential building blocks of matter, confusing their function and thus affecting the physical world.

In this case, the pressure on John’s brain caused him to bleed from his ears, nose, and tear ducts.

The metallic scent of fresh flowing blood roused Sean. His canine teeth grew to their killing length. He sprang onto John Smith’s body, tearing open his neck and ripping out his voice box just before a scream bubbled to John Smith’s lips.

The serial killer died too quickly for Doctor Death’s taste, but by the slurping and gulping sounds Sean made while feeding, Doctor Death could tell at least Sean would be satisfied and full.

Sean had been so hungry and depleted that he drained John Smith’s body in record time. He had also been an unusually sloppy feeder. Blood covered the entire front of his body. He looked around and did not see Doctor Death, so Sean went into Smith’s huge bathroom and took a shower. Wrapped in a towel after drying off, he gathered his filthy clothes and went in search of a laundry room and the Ghost Toasty. (You gotta love a vampire that cleans up after himself.)

The washing machine was off of the kitchen. Sean put his clothes in to wash the blood off. Good thing he dressed in black, he thought to himself. There would be no stains and no need to buy new clothes to go out in public again.

He found his ghostly companion in an elaborate office.

“The man was very organized,” said Doctor Death. “I found his will. He left everything but the kitchen sink to his brother.”

“You did not tell me he had living relatives.”

“He doesn’t.”

“Then the government will put all of his possessions on sale,’ said Sean, “and the country will view his estate as a great act of patriotism.”

“No,” said Doctor Death, “I have other plans.”

“What have you to do with it?”

“My name in life was David Smith,” said Doctor Death. “John Smith was my older brother.”

“You had me kill your brother?” Sean paced around the office. His urges wanted him to lunge at Doctor Death, but you can’t kill a ghost a second time.

“Family killing runs deep in my family,” said Doctor Death. “For the love of my life, he needed stopping.” He tried to move a library card laying on the surface of the desk. It didn’t budge. “You needed to feed. The situation was just common sense.”

“Your latest idea,” said Sean, “what is it?”

“Being dead, I couldn’t even blackmail anyone here in California to bring me back from the grave to inherit,” said the former David Smith.

“A stethoscope to your rotting corpse will prove the fact simply enough,” said Sean. He paced the room, looking at the well-stocked bookshelves with envy.

“Don’t look so smug.” Doctor Death swooped around Sean’s head. “It will work.”

“What?”

“You will be my resurrected son.”

Sean stopped moving and stared at the ghost.

“John killed my infant son, but no one reported the child’s death. John wrapped his lifeless body in bubble wrap, put it in a box, slapped postage on it and mailed it to me when I was in South America working. My son’s death is what drove me to do crank and ultimately kill myself. You will take over my son’s identity and inherit my brother’s wealth.” Doctor Death nodded at the incredulous Sean.

“Kismet.”

* Tobias Smollett: But we are sorry ... to consider Mr. Pratt's writings as 'purely evil' ... we should really look upon this author's departure from the world of literature as a good riddance of bad rubbish.

Part 002 - A Taste of Things to Come *

Sean turned on the radio. An old-fashioned soap opera played on the only station that came in clearly. He listened for a few minutes and then got lost in his thoughts. Killing someone like John Smith for his supply of human blood would be no problem. Society would be better off without such evil scum. Sean would be an invisible hero.

A couple of hours later, Doctor Death materialized next to Sean, startling him out of his superhero reverie.

“His mammoth ego has him sponsoring a foundation that takes care of motherless children,” said the ghost. He floated around Sean’s head. “He uses charity as a cover for his evil secret life. He will be home from a fundraising event in an hour.”

Sean gripped the steering wheel, his knuckles becoming paler. Smith made him mad, fatally mad, fatal for John Smith. Sean couldn’t wait to kill him.

“We need to put John Smith down tonight,” said Doctor Death, “he is planning another abduction tomorrow.”

“Will there be any evidence we can pass on to the authorities to give closure to his victims’ families?”

“In John Smith’s killing scenario, he covers his playroom in raw canvas. The gore dries on the canvas, which he hides with paint splatters. Then, he mounts and frames his work and displays it around his home as part of his art collection. He doesn’t worry about the exhibition as he is a famous collector and great art patron.”

“Tell me everything about his sick behavior,” said Sean. “I want him to pay for his deeds, and I need to know as much about him as possible.”

“He goes to towns far away from his home with no ties to his life. He targets huge men charged with killing their wives. Set free by the courts, they go home to their children, where they continue their abusing ways. He goes to their neighborhood bars. He sits next to them. He spikes their drinks. They get woozy, and he offers to drive them home. They accept. He looks very innocent. He gets them in his car, and they pass out. He drives to a secluded spot. He puts them in a trunk. He takes the men to his private jet and flies back to Mount Olympus. He puts them in his soundproof room, tied to a hook hanging from the ceiling. He stuffs chewed bubble gum in their nostrils. They feel like they are suffocating. He covers their eyes with it. They never see what’s coming. He leaves their mouths free. They scream. Their ears, unstuffed, hear their panic. He spanks them with a leather belt, the buckle digging fleshy chunks from their backs. He chews on their fingers and toes. After torturing them for two days in this way, he uncovers their eyes. They watch as he ejaculates over their mutilated bodies. He gets most excited over the ones who cry and beg to be set free. Once he achieves his sexual release, he rolls a cast iron, bull-shaped oven into the room. He stuffs the men inside (they are too weak to fight him by this time.) He starts a slow fire. He sits in the room watching and listening as the men become ashes, their horrific screams before they cook, feeding his obsessions.” (Men and their bar-b-ques.)

The scenery outside of the car changed from empty desert to sporadic small towns, to rundown suburbs and now to more high-end exclusive gated private homes.

“His pathology seems very autobiographical,” said Sean.

“Ew, don’t we sound like a doctor,” said the poltergeist-wanna-be, “That’s my moniker.”

“Don’t get all childish on me, DD. I just read a lot.”

“You happen to be right, though. John Smith goes after men who remind him of his father.”

“How long have you been watching him?”

“I was hanging around the night his father killed his mother. I’ve haunted him ever since.”

“Why haven’t you done anything about him before now?”

“You are the first person, um, vampire, I have found who would accept that I was real and not some schizophrenic hallucination.”

They pulled up to the garden gate of Mount Olympus. Sean cut off the car’s engine. The full moon hid behind heavy clouds, but the white mansion sat in the center of a multitude of spotlights like a singer on stage performing a solo. Sean didn’t know if he wanted to proceed with this course he was on. John Smith seemed to be doing the world a favor by removing these family killers and abusers, almost like he planned to do. His conscience experienced a seizure of regret. Doctor Death noticed Sean’s hesitancy.

“Not having second thoughts, are you?” The wraith became more opaque and expanded to fill the car’s interior.

“You can’t back out on me now.”

Sean felt Doctor Death invade the cells of his body. He shivered and clenched his muscles.

“You get out of me now,” Sean said. His anger management stressed his system. This situation, and his lack of nourishment wore him out.

“Relax, my fiendish friend.” The vaporous MD condensed back to normal.

“If it makes you feel better about going on with our plan, you should know that he once killed a young mother and her baby because he thought the woman had seen him with one of his victims. Another time, he ran over an old man when leaving a bar with another of his psychotic specimens. I have a whole list of the innocents taken in his urge for self-gratification.”

Sean’s zeal for vengeance and sanguine fluid returned. He gathered his energy reserves, stepped out of the car, and transformed into a bat. He flew to John Smith’s bedroom, squeezed through the crack of the partially open second-floor window, and reverted to his humanoid appearance.

John Smith lay naked in his king-sized, round bed covered in pink stuffed animals.

* Shang Tsung: We are here to fight in Mortal Kombat. Tomorrow the great Kombat begins, and now a taste of things to come.

Part 001 - And So It Begins *

A shadow stumbled across the courtyard only to rebound back to its owner when it passed the mirrored surface of the glass stage door to The Choral Society.

It was not true that a vampire cast no shadow or that he could not see himself reflected in a mirror. These were just tales some fool with a printing press distributed to the ignorant masses.

It was true, however, that a vampire had no soul. Upon being inducted into the Great Undead, a person lost all humanity. The pluralism of craving what one could no longer have warred with the need to feed on that which was forever lost. (That's a mouthful.)

Sean needed to eat.

While his long gone but not forgotten personhood knew it was wrong to suck a human dry, the mathematics of counting calories told him he needed human blood. He could live on rodents or larger animals, like dogs and cats, but human blood satisfied his demonic DNA. He even got some residual sense memories from a person’s venous fluids.

Unfortunately, he found himself in a ghost town, and ethereal bodies did not contain viscous substances. With no human trash around, not even a rat scurried through the alleyways.

It must have been his imagination, but Sean smelled roasting marshmallows. Ghosts rarely ate sweets, so maybe fresh blood could be had behind the partition of the next building.

Green Power sounded like a store catering to the newest fad to come down the highway. Instead of seeing recycled products behind his mirror image in the shop window, Sean saw the autograph of a famous serial killer.

Next to the ‘John Hancock,’ a sign read,

“We specialize in the cartography showing where this butcher lives.”

Sean entered the establishment, searching for a map. Maybe feeding on evil men could solve his dilemma and be his salvation.

Sean took a casual look for a map. He looked around and saw portraits of “The Most Wanted” on the mustard-colored walls. He decided to approach his search for bad-men-food like a brigadier general on a campaign.

He ignored the greed in his veins that called for immediate release. This course would be no slumber party. When you hunted a serial killer, rapist, or arsonist, there was no need to be careful or kind. He looked forward to causing apoplexy in someone.

Something rushed by his head. At first, he thought it was a hummingbird, but he knew no living beings were in the town. An apparition appeared in front of Sean, the Ghost Toasty he smelled earlier, its vapors singed on the edges.

“Call me Doctor Death,” said he. “I can help you find all of the sinners you can eat.” The haunt swooped around Sean’s head.

“How did you die?” Sean fanned his fingers through the specter.

“Don’t do that.” The apparition blinked off then on again. “I went for a midnight swim in my parallelogram-shaped natatorium after a day spent snorting cocaine, diving into the shallow end of the pool, hit my head, and died.”

“Not too bright,” said Sean.

Doctor Death turned up the wattage, and Sean had to shade his eyes.

“I know the first person on your menu lives in a mansion called Mount Olympus, surrounded by birch trees. You will need to go in with iron to protect yourself from his magic.”

“Um, vampire,” Sean said, pointing at his chest.

“Can you shape-shift right now or fly?” asked Doctor Death.

“No,” said Sean. “I am weak right now from lack of blood, but I’ll manage.”

“Follow me then.”

The apparition floated through the wall at the back of the store. Sean followed through a door into an alley where a cherry red Mustang sat.

“Get in,” said Doctor Death. “Let’s go.”

Sean got behind the wheel.

“Who’s car?”

“Mine.”

“Why would a ghost need a car?”

“The person before I became a ghost needed a killer car,” said Doctor Death. “Start her up.”

Sean turned the key. A horrendous rumble and a mean growl erupted from the running motor, shaking every inch of the vehicle. The vibrations made Doctor Death’s vapors shift and quiver. Sean turned the car off and got out.

“What are you doing?” asked Doctor Death.

“That car needs a new muffler,” said Sean.

“Begging vampires can’t be choosy.”

The vampire decided he could live with the lousy muffler on Doctor Death’s sport’s car. Sean felt light-bodied. A gentle spring rain began to fall. He climbed back into the driver’s seat and started the vehicle back up.

The Ghost Toasty, Doctor Death, floated into his car and above the passenger seat, the singed edges of his astral body vibrating from the noise of the malfunctioning exhaust system.

“The first serial killer we go after,” said Sean, “tell me about him.” Sean put the car in gear and drove out of the alley.

“John Smith wreaks havoc across the country and has never been caught. He inflicts pain of Biblical proportions while evading authorities in the forty-eight contiguous states, Alaska and Hawaii.”

“Why doesn’t he get caught?”

“He disguises himself as an upstanding citizen. He has wrinkles on his face and paralysis of his left leg that makes people take him for granted to their eternal grief.”

“How do you know him, DD?”

Doctor Death let out a ghoulish howl of operatic volume and length. Sean covered his ears, and the Mustang slid on the rain-slicked road.

“Control the car,” yelled Doctor Death.

Sean grabbed the wheel and straightened the vehicle.

“What the hell,” said Sean, “What’s up with the noise?”

“I remembered the first time I floated over John Smith while he nibbled on a victim.”

“He eats his victims’ flesh?”

“While they are alive and kicking.”

“He deserves a horrible death,” said Sean.

“Rip his throat out when we find him.”

“How far away is John Smith’s mansion, Mount Olympus?”

“You should get there in five hours,” said Doctor Death. “I will check to see if he is home.” He vaporized and disappeared through the open window.

* Gandalf: So it begins, the great battle of our time