Jerry In The City Of The Damned

By Michael Cairns

In the City, good days don’t come around too often...

But today the sun’s out, the cold’s keeping the worst of the smell away, and Jerry feels just fine as he whistles his way to work. For a mass-murdering fat guy with a crush on his boss, things don’t get much better...

Then a car with hood-mounted Rattle guns pulls up alongside him and everything changes.

When Danny Upper gives Jerry an ultimatum, his world comes crashing down around his ears. In his desperate struggle to get his life back, Jerry’s thrown into the seediest of underbellies, the beating heart of the City, a place no one goes unless they absolutely have to (or need drugs and can’t afford the good stuff). On the way, he meets a hooker with a heart of platinum (like gold, only harder), a night club owner with a penchant for testicle removal, a ruler with a love of foot massage, and more bad guys than you can shake a shit-covered stick at.
Only thing is, when it comes to bad guys, Jerry’s pretty near the top of the pile.

(He also has a thing for honesty, loves cats and only kills really mean guys. What’s not to love?)

• Language: English
• Publisher: Michael Cairns
• Release date: Oct 30, 2020
• ISBN: 9781909699861

Michael Cairns

Michael Cairns was born at a young age and could write even before he could play the drums, but that was long ago, in the glory days - when he actually had hair. He loves chocolate, pineapple, playing gigs and outwitting his young daughter (the scores are about level but she's getting smarter every day). Michael is currently working hard on writing, getting enough sleep and keeping his hair. The first is going well, the other two...not so much. His current novels include: > Young adult, science fiction adventure series, 'A Game of War' 1. Childhood dreams 2. The end of innocence 3. Playing God 4. Breathing in space 5. Escape 6. Gateway to earth > Urban fantasy super-hero series, 'The Planets' 1. The spirit room 2. The story of Erie 3. The long way home >Paranormal horror post apocalyptic zombie series, 'Thirteen Roses' 1. Before (Books 2-6 due for release in spring)

Book preview

Scene One

‘On the sixth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, a suppurating exit wound.’

Jerry whistled as he strolled to work. It was that kind of a day. The birds were singing, the streets were quiet, and the city smelled of snow. It had smelt better a couple of weeks now, but there had been a change overnight. It was a subtle change; anyone less perceptive than Jerry wouldn’t have noticed it. They’d have said it was colder, maybe a little greyer, if pushed. But these people didn’t push themselves.

He sneered as a car racing past beeped the person in front of them. They were obviously going just a little too slow, not quite to the speed limit, or the 10 above it the beeper wanted. What was the rush? How could anyone be in a rush on a morning like this?

Jerry sighed, hitched his thumbs into his belt and took a deep breath. There was no denying the slight tang of shit hovering beneath the crisp air. This was the City after all, but he’d learnt to ignore it, the way anyone who lived here long enough did. You couldn’t live in a place built on the graves of everyone who’d come before and spend every day thinking about; that way led to madness. Jerry knew, he’d been through madness and out the other side. He’d swum in madness, lapped it up, rubbed it all over his larger-than-entirely-healthy man boobs until it sunk in.

Once you’d spent that long staring the old bitch in the face, the stench of not-quite rotting flesh really wasn’t much to worry about. Not that it was a stench, not on a morning like this. The City was one of the few places people holidayed in in the winter, to hang out when the ice came in and froze the corpses beneath them.

Not that people came so much anymore. Some did, true, but more stayed away. There was something about the city sinking that kept them at a distance. They said it only had a few years left, but Jerry didn’t believe it. He’d been down there. You didn’t grow up in the City without sneaking into the sewers at some point, then down through one of the grates the City Fathers told themselves were secret, into the massive emptiness beneath.

Jerry squinted up at the sun. He could still remember it. That was, partially, because he’d been down there just two nights ago, dropping off his latest. But that first time was still imprinted on his memories. That was when it had all become clear.

The grate had opened onto a small platform. Had he not had his father’s torch, it would have been pitch black. Instead, he played his circle of light first over ancient stone, then into the darkness beyond. He’d been told not to breathe, if he could help it, and the scarf he’d wrapped round his mouth helped a little. But he could still smell them. He’d crept to the edge of the platform, laid on his front, and shone the torch down into the pit.

The sight was one that every person in this city had seen, if not in the flesh, heh, then in pictures. Jerry had seen it dozens of times on the feeds, on the net, but still he wasn’t prepared.

Bodies.

They were piled so deep it was impossible to get a sense of where the bottom might lie. He lay on his front on the tiny platform, spotting the ladder that trailed down maybe ten metres before the bodies began. The shaft, driven deep into the ground, was as wide as a house. The walls were made of huge bricks, each at least as large as a car. The shaft in which he found himself, breath rattling fast, was one of dozens, maybe hundreds beneath the city.

The air was cool. Apparently, gas released from the surrounding earth stopped them rotting. There were signs of their age, skin grey and pallid, hair grotesquely long, but for the main they looked like bodies that had been dead less than a month. And there were hundreds. And hundreds.

Smith had warned him. He’d said, ‘don’t puke in your scarf, Jez my fiddle fish, hold it in. Nothing worse than puke in your scarf. Never get the smell out.’ So Jerry had been prepared and not eaten breakfast that morning, but it was tough. For those first few seconds, it was tough.

Then he got interested. He’d not gone down that day, but when he returned a month later, complete with waders, gas mask and a big stick, he’d climbed right down that ladder and poked around. The others didn’t poke around; he soon realised that. The others took one look and ran, understanding that they’d never understand. Most in the City blocked it out, wore their smell masks in the summer, and pretended they lived in a nice normal place.

But for Jerry there was something wonderful about all those people. No one knew how they’d got there, or why. No one knew what terrors had overwhelmed the city and driven millions down to die in the dark and be preserved for ever. No one knew who they were, or why they were. They just knew they were there, and that their presence had enabled them to buy a much bigger house than in any of the other cities.

That was what had drawn Jerry’s family. Cheap house prices and good schools. Jerry wasn’t convinced about the latter, but he sure as shit knew the first was true. By the time he was twenty three he’d bought his own place, a massive three bed apartment on Main Street overlooking the Plaza.

So on a glorious morning like this, he could stroll to work knowing the smell was only going to get less and less over the coming weeks and that the City was, in these moments at least, just the same as any other.

And he didn’t believe all that rubbish about only having a couple of years. He’d spent long enough down there to give the walls a damned good inspection and they were strong. There was no crumbling, nothing caving in. Sure, the shafts themselves might cause a little subsidence, but not enough to bring the whole City down.

So while the rest of the City worried about the future, Jerry made hay.

Another car beeped and he jumped, then spun, ready to give them the finger. Fucking idiots, fucking ruining the peace of such a lovely morning—

The car was a huge black Bentley and he knew what that meant, so he swallowed his anger and kept walking.

The Uppers weren’t to be screwed with. The City Fathers could say what they wanted, they didn’t run the City. The Uppers ran everything, from the hookers to the pimps, from the bakers to the restaurants, from the theatres to the fighting dens, and whoever ran all that, ran the City. So when you saw a big black Bentley with racing stripes in blood red and rattle guns mounted on the wings, you put your head down and kept walking.

The car slowed. Jerry swallowed the lump that appeared in his throat and kept walking.

‘Hey!’

They were shouting at him, but he could pretend, at least for the first time, that they weren’t.

‘Hey, fat guy, hold up.’

Jerry groaned in the back of his throat. There was no doubting who they were talking to. He wasn’t fat, not really, but the person in the car obviously had a thing for thinness. Bastard. Jerry eased back and glanced up. The window of the car wound down and a man, for whom the word corpulent had been invented, peered at him with piggy eyes.

‘Sorry to bother you on such a lovely morning, but I have to ask. Can you smell snow in the air?’

Jerry’s eyebrows rose, then he grinned. This man obviously recognised one of his own, because he made Jerry look like a supermodel, not to mention actually appreciating the joy of the morning. Jerry nodded.

‘It’s coming today. Tonight maybe.’

‘It’ll freeze the Below.’

‘Yes it will.’

‘Shame.’

‘You like the smell?’ Why had he asked that? What a stupid question to ask someone. No one liked the smell.

‘I like how easy it is to lose things in there.’

Jerry flushed. They’d followed him. They had to have done, there was no other reason for a perfect stranger to make a comment like that.

‘I’m sorry, I haven’t a clue what you mean—’

‘Don’t play dumb with me. Where better to hide a body than a graveyard?’

‘What? Sorry, I really do—’

‘Jerry.’

The sweat froze on the back of his neck. Those piggy eyes didn’t blink.

‘Don’t come stupid with me. You’ve proven more times than I can count that you ain’t stupid, so don’t come stupid with me.’

‘Who are you?’

‘Danny Upper. You’ve heard of me, perhaps.’

Jerry nodded. He’d not heard of Danny because he kept his nose clean. But Danny looked like someone who liked to have been heard of. And in the big scheme of things, one Upper was just the same as all the others.

‘Good. I’ve been watching you.’

‘Why me?’

‘They all ask that.’ Danny turned to someone inside the car. Jerry got a glimpse of stockings and long blond hair. ‘Didn’t I tell you? They all ask that.’ He turned back to Jerry. ‘I been watching you because you’ve spent the last fifteen years, or thereabouts, killing people and dumping them in the Below. And you’ve not been caught.’

‘I reall—’

‘Try to deny it one more time and I’ll shoot you. You think those guns up front are for show?’

Jerry didn’t bother pointing out they were aiming away from him and he’d be long gone by the time they turned the car around. He had the feeling Danny had a gun right inside, just beneath the window. Like he was half hoping he’d have to use it.

‘Fine. So I have. Why do you care?’

‘Do you have any idea how hard it is to find someone as good at killing people as you?’

‘Isn’t that what you do?’

‘Me? Of course not. I’m a respectable businessman.’

Jerry chuckled, then stopped when he saw it wasn’t a joke.

‘So what do you want with me?’

‘Want? I want you to kill someone. Well, a few people actually, but we’ll start with one, just to get you warmed up.’

Jerry winced. It had been such a lovely day.

He killed people, sure. He lived in the City and had done his whole life; death was second nature to anyone who’d spent any serious time here. But he was picky about who he killed and they were always scum bags. Well, most of them. He knew it wasn’t right, but it wasn’t the same as what Danny was suggesting.

‘I don’t kill people for other people.’

‘Then you get killed by other people. Or me.’

Jerry chewed his lip. ‘Who is it?’

‘His name is West Side Simon. He runs the S Says club over on Ninth and Jackson.’

Jerry nodded. He didn’t know the name, because he kept his nose clean, but he could well imagine the kind of man who gained that kind of name.

‘What did he do?’

‘Do? Nothing. But I’m sure he will in the future. Better safe than sorry, that’s what I say.’

‘Is that why you got them guns?’

‘Exactly.’

They stared at one another. Jerry tried to decide if the look Danny was giving him was appraising, or murderous, or bored. Maybe all three.

‘When do I kill him?’

‘Just as soon as you damned well can. Okay, I’m bored now, see