Jonah Hex: Shades of Gray # 2

[arcalian]

Jonah Hex: Shades of Gray
#2: "Back In Black"
Written by: Susan Hillwig
Cover by: James Stubbs
Edited by: Jay McIntyre

[arcalian]

Maggie felt like she was trapped in a nightmare. First it was the sheer insanity of last night, with the sight of all those corpses getting up and walking like some late-show horror flick. And now she was hunkered down in a shadow of a big rig as a group of thieves debated the merits of chasing her down and shooting her. They’d already killed the hitchhiker she’d picked up a few hours ago, an odd-acting fellow named Jonah, and his dead body was laying not too far away on the blacktop...though as she stared at it, she began to think that perhaps Jonah wasn’t as dead as he looked.

Part of his head was gone, that was certain, and there was a massive amount of luridly-red blood pooling beneath it. But as she watched from her hiding spot, the blood turned black as midnight, then began to flow back towards the head, spreading over the horrid wound and reconstructing the skull. During all this, Jonah’s red hair turned white, and his skin became pale and dry, shrinking onto the bones to reveal all their hidden angles -- on the right side of his face, the skin seemed to tear itself apart, leaving only ragged strips of flesh, while the left remained intact. All the while, the fingers on Jonah’s hands twitched, then flexed, and Maggie bit down on her knuckles to keep from screaming as the corpse that had once been a young man known as Jonah began to push itself upright. She could hear one of the thieves hollering now, and saw a volley of bullets smack into Jonah’s corpse, which ignored the assault as he picked up his blood-spattered cowboy hat. Only once that was settled upon his head again did he turn to the thieves and say in a unearthly voice, “Ah tried tuh be nice ‘bout this, but now yuh done riled me up!”

The bullets started flying out of Jonah’s gun again, and Maggie heard the thieves crying out in agony as every bullet found its mark this time. He advanced on them, moving out of her point of view, and it wasn’t until the gun went silent that she dared come out to look. Sure enough, all four thieves lay on the ground dead, with Jonah’s reanimated corpse standing amidst them. She half-expected their bodies to get up as well, but thankfully they didn’t. When he turned to look at her, she froze, unsure of what he might do. “Yuh okay, Maggie?” he asked, to which she could only respond with a vague choking noise. “Whut’s wrong? Are yuh hurt?”

There was genuine concern in his voice, belying his nightmarish appearance, but when he stretched out his hand and started to move towards her, she blurted out, “Don’t touch me!”

He paused, a look of confusion somehow manifesting on his desiccated face, then he caught sight of his own hand. Slowly, he brought it up and touched the right side of his face, and to Maggie’s shock, Jonah began to sob, “No...please, Lord, no more of this...”


Out of the corner of her eye, she saw people running their way, and Maggie turned towards them. It was mostly truckers from the restaurant, along with a few employees. Rita the waitress came right up to her and said, “What the Hell’s going on over here, Mags? Somebody said they heard gunshots!”

One of the truckers walked past the two women. “Holy...somebody call the cops!” he yelled, then said to Maggie, “Christ, did you do all that?”

Maggie was surprised nobody was commenting on the walking corpse standing there, but when she turned around, she realized why: Jonah was nowhere to be seen. She called his name, but he didn’t reappear, and when she tried to explain to Rita and the others what had happened, they seemed to think she was on the verge of hysterics. In a way she was: just when she thought the horrors she’d seen the night before were over, they rise up again to menace her. As she waited alone in the diner’s back office for the cops to show up, she did her best to rationalize it. Perhaps the bullet had merely grazed Jonah’s head, and in a panic, her mind imagined the rest. But why imagine that? And with such detail? It was during this time that she realized she was still holding onto the bundle Jonah had shoved into her hands. Until he’d spotted those thieves, Jonah had clutched that lumpy gray cloth to his chest as if his life depended upon it. Hoping for some distraction from all this, however brief, she laid it on the floor and unrolled it.

Inside the bundle was a leather cowboy-style gunbelt, with a massive ivory-handled revolver -- identical to the one she’d seen Jonah wielding -- tucked into the holster. The bundle itself was really a short coat made of gray wool, with brass buttons running down the front and gold braid on the collar and cuffs -- she recalled seeing a similar gold braid with tassels on Jonah’s hat. Something about all this pricked at her brain, but she couldn’t puzzle it out until she remembered another odd item Jonah wore: a brass belt buckle with the initials CS stamped on it.

“CS...Confederate States...” Maggie slapped both hands over her mouth, her eyes wide. He didn’t know what a seatbelt was, she thought. He kept staring at everything. He thought we were serious when I joked about selling him to Rita. And that thick-as-molasses accent...he wasn’t just a dead man, he was a dead Civil War soldier!

Her brain was still coming to grips with that revelation by the time the cops arrived. Maggie didn’t tell them about any of it, though, nor did she show them the items Jonah had left behind: she knew the whole thing sounded like that old urban legend about the ghostly hitchhiker, and didn’t want them to write her off as crazy. She did tell them about picking him up along the side of the road, and about how he shot those four men -- the parking lot’s security camera backed her up on that one -- but that was all. After a few hours of questioning her and inspecting her truck, the cops let her hit the road, for which Maggie was thankful. The sooner she got away from there, the sooner she could put that madness behind her. Of course, that’s what she’d thought about the events of the previous night as well.

Despite her desire to forget, Maggie held onto Jonah’s belongings, even going to far as to roll them up neatly again, just as she’d first seen them. Part of her was screaming to throw them away, but another part wanted to hold onto them, if only to give herself tangible proof that she hadn’t completely lost her mind. So she laid the bundle on the passenger seat after climbing back into the cab, then threw the rig into gear. The CD player started up again as she drove down the night-shrouded highway, and about ten miles away from the diner, the gentle strum of guitar strings came out of the stereo speakers, and Elvis began to sing:

“Oh I wish I was...in the land of cotton
Old times there are not forgotten
Look away...look away...look away, Dixieland.”

An American Trilogy. She’d listened to that song dozens of times, yet she’d never paid attention to the fact that the first part was a mournful rendition of that old Southern favorite. Hearing it now, however, after her experience with Jonah...it was just too much. She slapped her hand repeatedly against the player until she managed to turn it off, all the while feeling like she was about to shake apart. Stop it, she silently chided herself. Stop it right now, it’s all over. Whatever Jonah was, he’s gone now, so just stop...

“Turn the music back on. Ah actually know thet one.”

A shriek ripped out of Maggie’s mouth. She slammed on the brakes, turning the wheel to the right and leaving black tire marks behind her as the truck slid to the side of the road. The sudden stop caused Jonah to fall through the curtain behind her seat and crack his head against the dash. As he lay on the floor of the cab groaning, Maggie threw the driver’s-side door open and leapt out, but not before reaching beneath the seat and grabbing the .38 out of its holster. Swinging it up towards the open door, she hollered, “Get out of my damn truck! Right now!”

Jonah stumbled out, hands in the air. He looked perfectly normal again, save for the deathly-pale gashes on his cheek and forehead from smacking into the dashboard. As he moved away from the door and towards the front of the truck, Maggie walked backwards, keeping a good ten feet between herself and Jonah. “You’re one of them, aren’t you?” she asked. “One of those walking corpses from last night.”

“Ah was, but now...now Ah ain’t sure whut Ah am.” While he talked, the gashes on his face changed from a mangled mess of gray and black to smooth, unscarred flesh. “Ah knew thet something was wrong, but Ah didn’t know how much ‘til thet fella shot me.” He paused, then said, “Ah didn’t mean tuh scare yuh.”

“Are you nuts? First you turn into a freaking zombie, then you hide in the back of my truck so you can pop out like the boogeyman, and now you say you didn’t mean to scare me?!?” She motioned towards the rig with the barrel of her gun, saying, “How’d you sneak in there with all those cops around, anyways? Did you make like a ghost and turn invisible or something?”

“Nope, Ah’m just good at bein’ sneaky. Besides, whut’d y’all expect me tuh do? Yuh had muh stuff.”

“Yeah, and I looked at your stuff too, and it sure explains why you were acting so funny: you’ve been dead since the Civil War. Considering that was over 140 years ago, I’m surprised you didn’t die all over again from culture shock.”

“First off, Ah didn’t die in the War,” Jonah replied with a hint of annoyance. “Ah died in 1904...thet’s only a hunnert an’ six years ago, thank yuh kindly. Secondly, compared tuh the last time Ah had tuh deal with this damn century, muh day so far has been a cakewalk.”

Maggie stared at him, wondering what he meant by ‘the last time’, then said, “Who the Hell are you? And if you really were a corpse last night, why are you suddenly alive?”

“Muh name is Jonah Woodson Hex,” he said, “an’ Ah don’t rightly know why Ah’m alive again...but Ah’ve got a decent notion ‘bout the how, if’n yo’re willin’ tuh listen.”

She said that she was, so he told her.

[arcalian]

The dead are everywhere, shuffling towards the city like a rippling sea of gray. They overwhelm anyone living that stands in their way, some of whom later get up to join the migration. He guides his mount through this, occasionally drawing one of his Dragoons to shoot at one of the specks of color that indicates a soul still alive within this madness. He feels nothing when he does this: the black has smothered every ounce of humanity left within him. Only his mission matters to him now, his only desire being to lay the unclaimed ring at his master’s feet. After that is accomplished, he will turn his guns fully upon those that directly oppose Nekron, those that obscenely bear their colors for all to witness. He knows one of them from his life long ago, and the black takes his memories of those days and begins to warp them so that, should the opportunity arise, he may use them to poison his former friend’s soul.

Coast City is still a few hundred miles away, but he can see and feel the battle through his connection to the other black rings. In his mind’s eye, he watches his master pull the Entity out of its hiding place deep within the Earth, and how the so-called “heroes” try to save it from destruction. Exhilarated by the inevitable victory, he spurs his horse to go faster, not caring about his fellow dead soldiers that are trampled beneath its hooves. Behind him, his cohorts from Illumination follow upon their own mounts, a morbid cavalry riding to their master’s aid.

Then, to his disbelief, the tide of battle turns, and he screams in agony as the black itself is corrupted by the accursed white light. A shock wave of brilliance rolls out from the epicenter of Coast City, causing every corpse it touches to fall to ash. He sees it coming, and he braces himself for the impact, holding tight to both the reins and the entrapped ring. But before the shock wave reaches him, he sees a tiny spark of white speeding ahead of it, and as it gets closer, he hears a voice, remarkably similar to the one he’d heard when the black first took hold of him:

[Jonah Hex of Earth...LI--]

The last word is cut off as the white ring crashes through the glowing cube he still cradles to his chest. Not slowing down, it impacts with the black ring trapped inside, and both are driven into his ribcage with such force that he flies out of his saddle. As he hits the ground, the shock wave sweeps over the area, obliterating first his horse, then all his dead compadres. He is too absorbed by his own pains to notice: vitality returns to dead flesh, organs regenerate, fresh blood flows through new veins, and most importantly, the black ring upon his finger shatters, severing his connection to the force that possessed him.

He lays there with his eyes closed, listening to the air pumping in and out of his lungs, feeling his heart beating strong and sure within his chest. After being dead for so long, these things seem alien to him. Slowly, he sits up, and the first thing he does is touch his face: the scars are gone, as are the wrinkles of old age, and a mix of confusion and elation floods through him. He opens his eyes now, blinking repeatedly as a breeze sprinkles ash into them. The desert landscape around him is nothing but blacks and whites and grays, just as it had been before. He thinks at first this is because of the ash swirling all about, but then he looks down at his hands and sees that they are a pulsing shade of blue, which soon turns into a riot of yellow as he begins to scream, not stopping until the dawn finally arrives to dispel the night.

[arcalian]

“So far as Ah know, Ah was the only one tuh walk out of thet desert alive.” Jonah’s hands were still in the air, as Maggie hadn’t lowered her gun in the least. “Of course, after whut happened tonight, Ah ain’t so sure if’n the word ‘alive’ applies tuh me.” He tapped his breastbone, saying, “Ah think thet other black ring done fouled things up in here.”

“But why you? Millions...maybe billions of corpses got up and walked last night, so why did you get a second chance at life and not them?”

“Ah already told yuh, Ah don’t know why. Maybe it’s ‘cause muh soul hadn’t moved on like all the rest, or maybe it was just dumb luck. Personally, Ah wouldn’t have picked me neither: Ah’ve known a lot of good folks over the years thet didn’t deserve tuh die, an’ Ah’d gladly give muh place tuh them if’n Ah could.” He shook his head with a sigh. “Ah ain’t gonna pretend thet Ah had the best life the first time around, but it was a long one, an’ Ah reckon thet Ah don’t have much desire tuh trudge through this world all over again.”

“What are you saying? That you’d rather be dead? You get an incredible gift like this, and you want to just throw it away?”

“Funny...a few minutes ago, y’all didn’t seem too keen on me bein’ here, an’ now yo’re upset thet Ah agree with yuh.” Jonah huffed, “Nice tuh know women are still flighty.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Maggie replied, then rolled her eyes. “God, I can’t believe I’m arguing about this.”

“Yo’re arguin’ ‘cause yuh got good reason tuh do so. Yuh lost somebody thet meant the world tuh y’all...somebody who yuh’d much rather be talkin’ tuh right now than an old saddle-bum like me.” He lowered his hands and began to walk towards her, saying, “An’ don’t try tuh deny it: Ah kin see how yo’re feelin’ plain as day.”

Maggie jabbed the air between them with the gun. “Stop! Don’t come near me or...”

“We already know thet won’t work.” Jonah reached out and put his hand over her gun, easing it down. “Yuh asked me afore if’n Ah needed help, an’ Ah reckon Ah do...but Ah also reckon thet y’all need a bit of help yerself.”

“What do you...” she began to say, then flinched as he brushed a lock of hair away from her face. “Don’t...I don’t want...”

“Yes yuh do. Yuh just don’t want it from me, is all.” He leaned close to her and whispered, “Ah cain’t give yuh Jeff back, but Ah kin give yuh this in his stead.” He then pressed his lips hard against hers, delivering a kiss full of passion and longing, the sort that could only be given by someone who had spent an eternity in the clutches of death, and now knew how precious every second of life really was.

Maggie resisted at first, then let herself get swept up in the moment -- by the time Jonah picked her up into his arms and carried her to the bunk in the back of the rig, her head was swimming from the rush of emotions brought on by his advances. As they made love, she thought of Jeff’s face, still young and handsome, and for a while, Maggie felt young herself. Jonah remained silent throughout it all, not wanting to spoil the illusion in her mind, or perhaps he was caught up in a illusion of his own, a bittersweet dream of the woman he’d left behind a century ago.

After they were done, Maggie slept, visions of Jeff and days gone by still floating through her mind. She had no desire to ever wake up again, but she eventually did, and was surprised to find that she was in bed alone. Then she saw that the curtain leading to the front of the cab was partially open, and Jonah was sitting in the passenger’s seat. Maggie got off the bunk and slipped her shirt back on, then joined him up front. “You all right?” she asked as she sat down in the driver’s seat.

“Right as rain.” He was fully dressed again, right down to his dusty boots -- there were bullet holes in his shirt and the long underwear beneath, but neither of them bore a speck of blood. “Just don’t feel like sleepin’...it reminds me too much of bein’ dead.”

His words hit Maggie like a dash of cold water, and she decided to change the subject. Spying the section of newspaper laying in his lap, she said, “Still catching up on current events?”

“Nope, just thinkin’.” He tapped the picture on the front page, which he’d stuffed in his pocket before they left the diner. “‘Bout an old friend of mine, mostly.”

She leaned over to see where his finger was resting. “Who, Green Lantern?” He nodded, and she asked, “How do you even know who he is if you’ve been dead for a hundred years?”

“It’s a very long, very complicated story, an’ Ah don’t feel much like tellin’ it right now,” he replied. “The important thing is thet Ah do know him, an’ he knows me, an’ his green butt was right in the middle of thet mess last night.” He tapped the paper again. “So if’n there’s any way tuh fix whut’s wrong with me, Ah reckon he’d be the one thet knows how tuh do it.”

“Well, if you want to find Green Lantern, there’s only one place for us to go: Coast City.” She waved a hand towards the moonlit road beyond the windshield. “I’ve still got make this delivery to Arizona, but once that’s done, we’ll turn...” She paused when she saw Jonah shaking his head. “What? What’s wrong?”

“Ah cain’t let yuh get involved in this any more than yuh already have, Maggie.”

“Why not? It’s obvious that you can’t do this alone: you’re broke, you’re on foot, you’ve been out of touch with the world for over a century...”

“Ah know all thet, dammit! Don’t yuh think Ah’ve already...” Jonah clenched his jaw tight until he’d reined back his anger, then he said, “The main reason Ah don’t want yuh involved is because of whut’s happened afore with me, back in...back in muh other life. Folks tended tuh die around me, especially ones thet Ah cared about. It was like a damn curse.” His gaze drifted to the floor of the cab. “With Lantern, it’s dif’rent...the man’s like me, he kin handle damn-near anything yuh throw at him. But yo’re an innocent party in all this, so Ah ain’t gonna risk yer life just tuh make things easier on me.”

“Hate to tell you this, but one of the things you missed was women’s lib. We’re not all helpless little lambs these days.”

“Never said yuh were. Still, it ain’t right fer me tuh pull yuh along. This is muh own problem, not yers...y’all don’t have one bit of responsibility over whut happens tuh me.”

“But Jeff...”

Jonah looked up at her, and Maggie suddenly realized her mistake. “An’ thet’s the other reason,” he told her quietly.

She didn’t argue with him any more after that. She did, however, insist on driving him to the nearest exit heading west. By the time they reached it, the sun was just beginning to peek over the horizon, bringing a warm orange glow to the landscape. Maggie pulled the rig over about a quarter-mile before the exit, then hopped out with Jonah. “This’ll take you up to the surface roads,” she explained as they stood on the gravel shoulder, “which is a lot safer than walking alongside the highway. And remember...” She took his hand and bent his fingers into a fist with the thumb sticking out. “If you want a ride, hold this out where the drivers can see it. Not everybody stops for random guys on the side of the road like me. Okay?”

“Okay.” Jonah’s eyes wandered off for a moment, then he said, “This ain’t easy fer me tuh say, but...thank yuh, Maggie. Fer last night...an’ fer this.” He tugged at the duffle bag slung over his shoulder: it contained not only his Dragoons and other belongings, but an old blanket, some packaged food, and a map of California with a route to Coast City clearly marked upon it.

“Well, if you’re not going to let me take you, I had to at least make sure you’d survive the trip,” she said with a smile. “Now, you’ve got my cell number in your pocket, right? When this is all said and done, I want you to call me so I know you’re okay.”

“Don’t worry, Ah will. Matter of fact...” He unzipped the bag and pulled out his Confederate-gray coat. “Y’all hold onto this fer me, just tuh me sure.”

“Oh, Jonah, you don’t have to do that.”

“Ah want tuh do it. Besides, Ah ain’t rightly sure Ah should keep the thing.” He draped it around her shoulders, saying, “Ah’ve worn it through two wars now, an’ both times Ah was on the losin’ side...reckon thet’s as good a reason as any tuh give it up.”

Maggie gazed up at Jonah’s face. Now that she knew why his eyes looked so old, and why he looked so lost, the memory of what she saw the night before no longer frightened her. Instead, she felt a sense of wonder thinking about how this man had traveled through life and death and back to life again. She did indeed wish that it was Jeff that had gotten the second chance, but Jonah’s journey offered her proof of one of life’s great mysteries -- the existence of a soul -- which meant that, when Maggie died, there was a strong possibility that she and Jeff would be together again. How do you thank someone for giving you such hope like that? There was no proper way, so she settled for a more common show of gratitude: a warm, loving kiss, which Jonah returned in kind.

After saying their goodbyes, Maggie turned to walk back to the truck. Across the road, the eastern sky had become a glorious mix of reds and oranges and yellows, and she paused to look back over her shoulder and say to him, “Looks like it’s going to be a beautiful day.”

His eyes fixed on the dawn, Jonah replied, “Ah cain’t see it.”

Maggie felt a chill run through her when he spoke those words, but she managed to keep a smile upon her face nonetheless. As she started the rig back up, she watched Jonah walk towards the exit ramp, all stiff shoulders and long-legged stride, just like the first time she’d seen him. She hoped that he’d be okay on his own, and that he’d find the Green Lantern and get the help he needed, but most of all, she hoped that she heard from him again.

As the days passed, Maggie settled back into her usual routine, shuttling cargo from one destination to the next. Whenever she saw a bit of news regarding what they were now calling the Blackest Night, she’d pay close attention and think of Jonah. The day she learned that twelve other people had apparently been resurrected as well, she smiled and thought, Jonah got to be lucky thirteen. She still didn’t know why he and the others had come back -- nor if these other twelve had the same problem Jonah had -- but she felt better now knowing that he wasn’t alone in this. One resurrection was odd enough, but thirteen? There had to be something to this, some pattern. She wished Jonah would call her so they could discuss this, but every time the cell rang, it wasn’t him. She began to worry that something had happened to him, and she’d never know it.

A week after the Blackest Night, Maggie was in California again, on the same highway she’d picked Jonah up on. She stopped at the same diner, though she soon wished she hadn’t: Rita and a few others were watching her the whole time, like she was some sort of alien that had strolled in from Venus for a bite to eat. She knew why they were staring, but that didn’t mean she liked it, especially since she knew the truth about that night one week ago and they didn’t. So Maggie ate quickly and got out, deciding that she would never stop there again, even though she’d been a regular there for over a decade.

The sun was down, and Maggie walked through the dark maze of trucks to her rig. When she got there, she was surprised to find the driver’s-side window smashed and the door ajar. “Oh no, not again,” she whispered. She considered going back to the diner for help, but she didn’t want to endure their stares again, so she slowly eased the door open until she could pull her .38 out from under the seat, then she called out, “Okay, buddy, if you’re still in there, you’d better step out right now.” No sound came from inside the cab. “Look, I’m coming up, and I’m armed, so don’t get any ideas!” Maggie climbed up over the seat, gun held in front of her, and stood before the closed curtain. “Last chance!” she said, though by now, she was beginning to think that whomever had decided to play smash-and-grab was long gone.

Then the curtains parted, and Jonah’s Confederate-gray coat -- shredded almost beyond recognition -- was tossed through. As Maggie looked down at it in shock, an unearthly voice growled from behind the curtain, “Where is he?”

Maggie only managed to say, “What...” before a pair of deathly-pale hands reached out and yanked her through the curtain.

[arcalian]

NEXT ISSUE: It’s Old Home Week for Jonah Hex as he makes a “Return to Paradise”!

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