Unfulfilled

Unfulfilled

By

JAMES GOLDEN

‘Am I dying?’ Ryan Harcourt wondered.

It all happened so fast. Eight spined limbs had shot from the dark and plunged into him, slicing through his major organs like water balloons.

There were still words on Ryan’s lips- a call for help to the boy he was supposed to meet tonight. They faltered, severed by the blade in his brain.

With a gasp of surprise, the world went black.

Life tumbled away, lost to time and distance. The familiar sensation of falling came over Ryan. With it came vertigo, churning in his ruined stomach. His heart, ribbons of meat held in place by layers of pierced tissue, beat like plastic streamers in his chest. Ryan’s open mouth gasped a trail of crimson that splashed the black cavern walls as he fell.

He spiraled endlessly through a world of cool darkness. The absence of light brushed against his skin like silk sheets, soft, thin, and ticklish.

A smile crossed Ryan Harcourt's face as he plummeted. There was something in his hands, something weighted and familiar. What was it? A tennis racket? That seemed even more ridiculous than physical darkness.

Ryan started to laugh, but no sooner had he begun, than his body struck the ground, hard. The jolting impact was not so painful as jarring. He felt his organs mash together like potatoes in a sack.

Dashed upon solid stone, Ryan tumbled to a stop. Gradually, his vision adjusted to the gloom and Ryan shook his head, hardly able to believe what he was seeing.

“What the hell?” Ryan asked.

Around him, in various states of decay and dismemberment, shuffled the throngs of the dead. A mass of humanity drawn from all over the world, they mixed as they walked; shades of wheat decorated by flashes of scarlet.

Ryan climbed to his feet.

A woman with a broken neck walked by. She cocked her head to gaze at him and smiled sadly. Ryan smiled back. She cradled a thick, knotted rope in her hands.

“Suicide?” He whispered.

None of the dead nudged or bumped into Ryan. Instinctively, the shades went around him, thousands strong, drawn down the dark cavern towards something shining in the distance.

Glancing down, Ryan caught his reflection in a shallow pool of murky water. He was still the blond-haired, green-eyed young man he knew, but the eight holes in him bled profusely. Each ran all the way through. If Ryan concentrated, he could feel stale air passing through.

Understanding dawned on him.

“I’m dead,” Ryan gasped. “Someone killed me.”

His fingers searched his body, feeling the holes in his head, heart, and kidneys. Something had slashed his stomach to chunks and left him to die. It was a monster- a creature of incomprehensible horror.

He gazed at the bloody tennis racket in his hands. It was a green and black Babolat Racket, top of the line. It had been a present from his mother but not a month ago on his birthday. Why was it here, and why was he so grateful to see it?

Ryan wanted to cry but no tears came. He felt empty, devoid of fluids. The body he inhabited wasn’t real. It felt ephemeral, somehow transitional. What that meant, Ryan could not say.

Panic welled within him. He wanted to scream, to rage at the injustice of it all. He’d had a life, a family, a future! His name, the name of the Harcourt family, was synonymous with tennis. He couldn’t be dead! There was still so much left to accomplish.

Suddenly, a hand reached up and gently tapped Ryan on the shoulder. He started, surprised that he could feel it.

Into the gentle eyes of an older woman, Ryan stared. Her gaze was weathered but warm. Her smile, though missing several teeth, was kind and genuine. The woman’s arm rested on Ryan’s shoulder, and though she too was dead, he could tell she was weary and out of breath.

“Oh, child! I spotted you from a mile away,” she said. “This old body. I can’t wait to lay it down.”

She looked up at Ryan.

“Names Delores,” she said, offering her hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

Around them, the dead diverted, forming a fork in the road. Their cacophony of moans echoed in the cramped caverns.

“Ryan Harcourt,” he answered, still in shock. He shook her hand. “Why did you stop?”

“Because you stopped,” Delores answered easily. She turned and pointed at one of the hundreds of grisly statues lining the path. “And because I don’t want to see you end up like them. I ain’t been down here but a minute, but I know a terrible fate when I see one.”

Ryan stared at the statues. They were humanoid and realistic, posed in ways that spoke volumes of their anguish. The dust of the realm coated them, granting the appearance of solid stone. Now and then, one moved.

“Don’t let your suffering lock you in place,” Delores whispered. She patted Ryan’s arm and then shuffled off. Her voice floated up behind her. “Death is just the beginning, young man.”

In seconds, she was gone, indistinguishable from the hordes of the dead.

Ryan steadied his nerves and began to walk again, following the crowd. He’d only stopped for a moment, but his joints were stiff. It took effort to keep grief at bay and not let it immobilize him. He had to control his thoughts and force them to follow instructions.

One foot after the other, Ryan trekked downward.

The crowd felt like the marching procession of fans to a stadium, though absent cheer. Ryan walked a descending spiral; the stone path beneath him, a gradual curve.

At times the path grew thin, and the caverns enclosed around the horde. Walls of jagged rock, stained red from bloody handprints over the ages, blocked the wider view of the Underworld. Ryan could sense that the Deadlands were vast, far too much for a mortal mind to take in at once.

Eventually, the spiral path straightened. The stone beneath his stained sneakers gave way to concrete and metro tile. The cavernous ceiling became steel and fluorescent lighting.

Ryan was entering a subway station.

The crowds of the dead branched into four lines. A clicking sound, like knuckles cracking, echoed in the sloping tunnel. Every four seconds it came again, four sharp raps, like bone striking bone.

It did not take long for Ryan to realize that was exactly what he was hearing.

The turnstiles ahead were carved from the skeletons of humans. Cracked, yellow femurs spun with each passing person, admitting the dead one at a time toward the stairs leading down.

The familiar sound of a large locomotive pulling in was almost soothing to Ryan. He imagined that existence after death wasn’t that bad.

The mouth spat a ticket, and Ryan felt the femur budge, allowing him passage through.

Following the crowd, Ryan took the stairs carefully, marveling at the architecture of the Underworld. The walls were made from carved bone and held together by strips of flesh and large intestine. Ryan half-expected the stench of the New York City subway to come rushing up the stairs. Instead, the air was stale and dry.

The walls displayed signage to help the population find their way around. The train ahead was called The Vanquisher Express. Its picture on the wall, outlined by hazy, green smoke, was that of a colossal worm creature. Its skeleton had become the outer shell of the train, while its innards had been cleared for seating. The massive dead thing was larger than Ryan could comprehend, a fact unaided by the dreary voice coming over the loudspeakers.

“Now entering Stygia Station. The Vanquisher Express is approaching the platform. Please remain clear of the train as it pulls into the station. Souls who fall onto the tracks will become part of the tracks. Please take any available seating- the Vanquisher Express is considered endless.”

When Ryan came to the bottom of the stairs, he froze. There, like the corpse of a great serpent god, the train waited. As advertised, Ryan could not see the tail of the locomotive. It stretched into darkened tunnels that led to places Ryan would rather not imagine. The bulk of the train was out of sight.

Ryan searched the station for a map or a list of available exits but could not find any.

The shuffling souls of humanity dredged toward the train, moving with autonomous purpose.

A few carried items with them, clutching them close to their chests. Nothing as large or useless as a tennis racket though, Ryan noted.

“The train is departing in one minute,” the conductor announced.

A trill of panic shot down Ryan’s spine. He didn’t understand why, but he sensed he needed to hurry.

None of the other passengers seemed to have Ryan’s level of urgency, but thankfully, neither did they have his awareness. Ryan pushed and squeezed past the crowds, rushing to beat the crowd.

“Stand clear. The doors are closing,” the conductor called.

On instinct, Ryan put on a burst of speed and leaped past a middle-aged man with yellowing skin. The specter hardly noticed- content to wheeze and wait for the next train.

The doors closed behind Ryan with the sound of a breaking rib. He had made it inside.

“Please take your seat,” the conductor groaned. “Passengers standing may become part of the train. To ensure that you reach your intended destination, please remain seated.”

Ryan looked around the train car. It was filled with somber, unfriendly faces. Every seat was taken, and no one was moving.

Gripping the tennis racket tighter, Ryan moved down the aisles, searching for a seat.

As advertised, the train felt endless. Ryan walked for several minutes, hounded by the increasingly exasperated voice of the conductor. Finally, in a dark car far back in the tunnel, Ryan found seating.

Lit by lanterns that hung from the mouths of grinning skulls, the train car was a black and orange sanctum, absent the sobs, sniffles, and groans of other deceased. It was almost peaceful.

Exhaling, Ryan took a seat. The firelight cast on his skeletal surroundings would have terrified him in life. Now, he was grateful for the quiet.

With a hiss, the massive corpse engine took off, rumbling down the track.

“Next stop, death by misfortune,” the conductor droned wearily.

Ryan nodded and leaned back in his seat. Death had been unfortunate, but was it misfortune? He looked down at the holes in his body, then put two fingers to his forehead, feeling the brutalized flesh.

His death had been no accident, he knew, no fluke of chance that had robbed him of life. Ryan Harcourt had been murdered.

But by who? All Ryan remembered was that he had gone to meet a boy, Leon Masterson, at the school tennis courts. Leon had asked Ryan if he’d play a night game with him, but when Ryan got there, the courts were dark and empty. Leon was nowhere to be found.

Something else had been there, though- a creature waiting in the darkness.

Ryan’s last moments were thankfully swift, more confusing than painful. Now, in the low-lit car, he cursed the thing that had taken his life.

Ryan hardly noticed that the train stopped for a full three minutes. He was thankful that no passengers came as far back as his car. He felt different, more animated than the dead around him. The last thing he wanted was to look like he was freaking out amidst a crowd of ambivalent souls.

“Next stop, death by disease,” the conductor called.

The train shot off into the darkness. Ryan closed his eyes for just a moment, but when he opened them, the train had stopped again.

They were at a new stop.

The platform was coated in fungus. The shades that shambled off the train breathed contamination, their every step weak with disease. They exited into a place that resembled the world of the living except twisted and gray.

Warped, towering buildings stretched into the cavernous sky. Entire neighborhoods were sinking into uneven ground. The dead moved purposefully here.

Save for the acid green sky and muted gray grass, it almost looked nice.

Absorbed, Ryan had not noticed the hundreds of boarding passengers until the door to his train car opened. He scrambled to take a seat.

The hundreds of dead shuffling by occupied every seat in the car except the one next to Ryan. Most acted like they could not see him.

Perturbed, Ryan slumped down. The conductor announced the next stop, something about death and nature. Ryan prepared himself for gore.

The train rumbled on, descending deep into the bowels of the Underworld. When it arrived at its next stop several minutes later, those who departed were truly deformed.

These were the victims of shark attacks and drowning, of house fires and lightning strikes, of nature in all her fury.

Ryan closed his eyes to it. What had killed him had not been natural. It was a vile thing, ill-suited for the world of light and laughter. Yet, it was still up there, killing and feasting, while Ryan was dead. Nothing about that sat right with him.

Caught in his thoughts, Ryan hardly heard the announcement for the next platform. The reminder to be seated came again. Ryan rolled his eyes, wondering who was holding up the train.

“Excuse me. Mind if I sit here?” A man asked.

Ryan started and dropped his tennis racket. He snatched it up, surprised.

The man was tall and lean, with forest green eyes and dirty blonde hair. For a moment, Ryan simply stared. The stranger smiled, looking for all the world like an older version of him.

“Oh! Yes. Um, please have a seat,” Ryan stammered.

He scooted to the window and the tall man sat next to him. His eyes drifted to the racket in Ryan’s hands.

“Do you play?” he asked.

Ryan had not expected the stranger to talk to him. None of the other passengers had said a word save for the occasion grief-stricken wail.

“I did,” Ryan answered glumly. “What does it matter now? I’m dead.”

The man laughed. It sounded odd on the somber train.

“What? You don’t think the dead play tennis?” the man joked, offering his hand. “I’m George. It’s nice to meet you—”

“Ryan,” he finished, shaking George’s hand. “Ryan Harcourt.”

George’s eyes widened.

“A Harcourt? I’m in the presence of Tennis royalty?” George asked.

“It’s nothing,” Ryan said quickly. “My uncle is a champion. He takes after our grandfather. He was the real deal. I never got to meet him, though. He passed away when I was young.”

George nodded. Ryan continued.

“I won a scholarship to a school called Pinecrest. They finish out your senior year of high school and then you’re a freshman, already on campus. I thought I was going to go pro. Turns out, my story just…ends.”

It was impossible to hide the bitterness in his voice.

“So, what is your style?” George asked after a moment.

“Why are you so curious about me? Talk to someone else that died,” Ryan snapped.

He had no idea where that had come from, but he did not offer an apology.

George only smiled.

“I think you might be the only conversationalist present,” George offered with a shrug.

Ryan sighed.

“What does it matter what my style is? Do I get to play The Devil for my soul? Why do you care?”

He expected George to look hurt. Instead, George nodded sagely and pointed to a woman a few seats away. She wore a thick coat about her shoulders and a red, flowing dress that might have been fashionable in the nineteenth century. She clutched a bag to her chest and looked frantically down the length of the train.

Ryan frowned. He’d seen her board from the diseased platform. She had seemed out of place there, and now she looked like a nervous wreck. She had black hair that tumbled over her shoulders and blue eyes that were bloodshot from crying. She might have been beautiful, if not for the clothing iron embedded in the back of her skull.

“See her? She’s in a hundred-year-long pickle. She doesn’t know her play style. Hell, she’s not sure how she died. Nothing feels familiar to her,” George said.

Ryan nodded heavily. He empathized with that. How could anything feel familiar after being ripped away from all you knew and loved?

“Everything frightens her,” George continued. “She’ll get off at the next exit, regardless of how she died, and fret about the station until the next train comes.”

“Forever?” Ryan asked. “Won’t someone help her?”

His heart ached for the distressed stranger.

“Some have tried,” George said. “The Underworld is not so detached that kindness doesn’t trickle down, but it’s rare. The real help is past these stations, in the realms below. You just got to be brave enough to serve.”

George mimed a tennis player hitting a ball. Ryan laughed, but his heart was not in it.

He turned to study the woman. Ryan longed to help her, but he knew he needed to help himself first. The game does not start until you are brave enough to serve

“If life is a game, what is death but the rematch?” Ryan whispered.

He turned to thank George, but the seat next to him was empty. Tucked between the armrest was an aged, yellow newspaper.

“George?” Ryan called.

No one answered. Unrolling the newspaper, Ryan held a copy of the New York Times. The cover photo was of a man wheeled out of a penthouse suit in Manhattan. A sheet covered his body, but Ryan could tell it was George. A chill raced down Ryan’s spine. He read the headline over and over.

Following a crushing defeat at Wimbledon, Harcourt found dead in New York penthouse. Family in mourning.

“Grandpa?” Ryan whispered.

“Next stop, Death by violence!” The conductor called.

Ryan stared hard at the woman. She was coming to, growing more alert by the second. He wanted to let her know that everything would be ok, that he would find her again and help her, but could he make that promise? His future was still undecided.

The train hissed and screeched to a halt. Ryan watched as she stood up with the other passengers. Frightened, looking around frantically, she began to exit the train following the crowd.

He couldn’t bear to see it. Finding his courage, Ryan tightened his grip on the tennis racket.

“THIS IS THE RIGHT PLATFORM!” he yelled, standing up.

The crowd continued on, but the woman in the red dress paused. She looked back at him, finding his eyes despite the sea of people.

“You were murdered,” Ryan whispered, positive she could hear him. “This is where you belong, where you can get help. I’ll find you again. I’ll check up on you.”

It was a promise he intended to keep.

For a moment, the woman only stared at him. The clothing iron embedded in her skull quivered. Then, she smiled. A hardiness came over her, and something akin to righteous anger smoldered in her eyes. Recognition of herself and her situation slowly overrode her panicked state until someone serene and capable stood before him.

She nodded, gratitude evident in her knowing smile, and then turned and marched into the crowd.

Ryan took a deep breath and followed, stepping off of the train. He’d done something good for another, but now it was time to turn inward.

Following the dead at a distance, Ryan exited the train station into a city of death. Something like gravity settled around the slashed ribbons of his heart. Ryan couldn’t say how, but he knew his short journey was nearing its end.

The city was a stacked realm of physical impossibility. Abnormality flourished. The roads were at once solid asphalt, traversed by the wreckage of cars, and a river of tar, navigated by longboat fishermen. Towering apartment complexes housed the dead in a mockery of life, while millions flocked to the skyscrapers at the center of the city.

Death, Ryan understood, was a way of life in the Underworld.

Ryan began to explore the city. The main streets felt exposed and dangerous. The backstreets, contrarily, were dark and inviting.

Suddenly, a neon sign lit up in a nearby alley, flooding a building with pink light. Try as he might, Ryan could not look away.

“Vengeance,” Ryan read.

He laughed at the absurdity of such an idea but stopped quickly. If there was something that could help him take down his monstrous killer, it was in the Underworld.

Entering the alley, Ryan approached the building. Ryan couldn’t be sure it had always been there. He had to entertain the notion that whatever had lit the sign knew about him, and how he had died. Why else would it flare to life if not to catch his eye?

The building was a crooked two-story thing that swayed like branches in the wind. It resembled a peeling scab. The wood was rotten and filled with pus.

Ryan stared for a moment then slammed the doorknocker. A loud rap echoed throughout the building. For a second, he thought of running, but the door swung inward, revealing a dark and abandoned interior.

Exhaling shakily, Ryan stepped inside. There was a waiting room to his right, but it was dark and dusty. The magazines had not been touched in years. Ryan spotted darkened offices down the hall and a stairway that led to the second and third floors. Pungent smoke drifted down, and Ryan could hear distant music from above.

“Hello?” Ryan called. “Anyone here?”

A strange shuffling sound reached his ears. He looked up, sure that he’d heard something.

“I saw the sign,” Ryan said. “I could use some help. I’m not exactly the violent type, but vengeance sounds good.”

The door crept shut behind him. Ryan found himself drawn toward the stairs.

He read the names on the frosted office windows as he passed them.

“Avenger and Wayfarer, Echo and Harvester. Are these code names?” Ryan called up, hoping his voice carried. “Do they have meaning?”

A chair scraped the floor by way of answer. Someone or something was up there.

Rounding the stairs to the third floor, Ryan found himself staring at two offices. One was dark and ajar, the name on the frosted glass bizarre but expected. Joy-bringer, Ryan read. The other was wide open, bathed in neon pink glow from the sign outside. That office was filled with thick cigar smoke.

Engraved on the open office was the word Unfulfilled.

It was a feeling that Ryan knew very well. Even now, he felt a gnawing in his soul, an emptiness that cried for answers.

“Ryan Harcourt,” A voice in the smoke called.

Ryan started but caught himself. He’d come this far. The sign had turned on for him, he was sure of it.

“Yes,” Ryan said, his voice a polite whisper. “And you are?”

“The Unfulfilled,” came the answer, throaty and vile.

It was not a single voice but a conglomerate of voices speaking in unison, Ryan realized. No one was waiting for him in the smoke. The Unfulfilled was the smoke. It was an entity beyond his comprehension, beyond a form that his mind could understand.

Music drifted from the room, disjointed and eerie. A woman sang slowly, crooning to the tempo of a warped band.

“Why don’t you come in, take a seat? Office hours are limited,” The Unfulfilled said.

Feeling around, Ryan located the chair and sat down. This moment was special, he knew. This place was special. It was not the Underworld that every other shade went to. This office had rules of its own. Of that, Ryan was sure.

“You want vengeance for your murder,” The Unfulfilled stated.

Ryan struggled to find the right words. He gripped the bloody racket for support.

“I was killed by a monster. Something that should not be,” Ryan said. “Like a spider from my nightmares. It came out of the nurse’s body like she was just a…skinsuit!”

“The nurse from your school? Pinecrest?” The Unfulfilled clarified.

“Yes,” Ryan whispered.

The Unfulfilled inhaled and a cigar cherry flared in the pink smoke.

“False,” it declared in a gurgling slew of voices.

Ryan shook as if slapped.

“False? What do you mean? She cut my heart to pieces! There is a hole in my brain!” Ryan hollered.

The Unfulfilled only chuckled.

“We can target the nurse as part of your contract, but her days are numbered,” The Unfulfilled said.

From the smoke, a packet slid across the desk, landing in Ryan’s lap.

“She is but the instrument of your demise, Mr. Harcourt. The real killer goes on to lead a long and storied life,” The Unfulfilled taunted.

Ryan felt his world shake. What little he thought he knew about his death had just been torn asunder.

“The…real killer?” Ryan managed.

Anger, like nothing he’d ever experienced, erupted within him. His eyes found the dotted line at the bottom, shining bright and clear through the cigar smoke.

“Of course. There is a place for those preyed upon by monsters. It is adjacent to Death by Nature. Fair to say that you were killed by a beast, but murder implies something more—”

“Human,” Ryan answered.

His mind raced with possibilities. Any number of students could have done it. He was the new kid, without friends or connections. Was it the captain of the tennis club? Some other student who stood to gain from his death? Who would work with that monster?

“I don’t know who it is. No one knows me outside of a few teachers. Only one student even bothered to talk to me, but it couldn’t be him. Could it?”

Ryan swore the smoke smiled.

“Observe,” The Unfulfilled said.

To the jaunty tune of the warped music, shapes emerged in the smoke. It was a familiar scene, one that Ryan recognized immediately.

“This is my death,” he whispered.

Night materialized- a dark blanket of stars over the fog-filled trees of Pinecrest Academy. A young man walked onto the empty tennis courts. Behind him loomed the school, a monument to higher learning and inherited privilege. The moon played in the low-hanging clouds.

The young man turned in circles, worry and regret twisting in his mind. He called the name of the one who had stood him up.

Stepping from the shadows as one might a doorway, Nurse Kyoko appeared. She was pale and beautiful, her dark eyes glistening with sinister intent.

Ryan could not watch what happened next. He turned from the carnage and his eyes landed on a figure watching in the darkness.

It was a young man in a black three-piece suit. There was a wicked glint in his eyes. His black hair and dark aura made him nearly invisible in the shadow of the trees. He caught the Nurse’s eye as she slipped out of her body and into her true form.

“Leon Masterson?” Ryan choked. “We were supposed to—He set me up to die?!”

“Murder,” The Unfulfilled gurgled.

Ryan stared at the contract.

“What is it?” he asked. “Summarize it.”

“A second chance. We are the same, Ryan Harcourt. We have waited for one like you for so long. Sign and we return to seek your vengeance, together!”

The Unfulfilled swelled in size.

“We are the same! No longer will we want, when we can have. Never again will we remain silent, when we should speak. We will be vengeance to those who deserve it and seek fulfillment in all its forms. Sigh, Ryan Harcourt, and rise with my power!” The Unfulfilled cried.

Ryan didn’t even realize his hand was moving until the quill was already in his fingers and dripping ink. Without stopping to think, Ryan signed his name.

The parchment rolled and shot into smoke, gone with an audible whoosh.

“You should close your eyes,” The Unfulfilled warned. “This next bit is going to hurt.”

Pain like nothing Ryan had ever experienced surged through him. He slammed his eyes shut, fighting vertigo and nausea simultaneously. The taste of blood and bile was metallic on his tongue.

Then came the waves. Like the biblical flood, Ryan felt himself washed away, cast into an endless black ocean churning with corpses. Millions of fingers grazed his flesh, but it was not his flesh alone. The Unfulfilled was with him.

Ryan felt the incomprehensible being fill the filleted chunks of his heart and become his mutilated intestines. It pulsed through his veins and fired his synapses. It sank into his brain and mired in his thoughts.

The cold was stronger now, a physical sensation that Ryan could feel. Something was happening. He could feel his skin stitching back together, pulling itself whole.

Steadily, everything settled.

Ryan was still in pain, still unbearably cold, but his senses were calming, dialing down toward something that felt like reality.

“Open your eyes,” The Unfulfilled said.

Without a second thought, Ryan did.

He was in a large meat locker. The meat he had been unceremoniously dumped onto was other mutilated people. Like him, they had been run through multiple times by appendages the length of swords. Unlike Ryan, they had not returned from their final resting place.

‘What is first on our agenda?’ The Unfulfilled asked in his mind.

Ryan inspected his body. More than just repaired, he felt stronger than ever before, more capable than he could fathom. He was not one, but many, and together, they had the power to fulfill his every desire.

“First,” Ryan said, setting their eyes on the locked meat locker door. “We start down the path we promised. Onward, Unfulfilled, to vengeance.”