RETURN TO PARADISE
*Note: This story takes place before the events of Brightest Day #4.*
"Okay, now where have you dropped me?" Boston Brand, once a Deadman but now very much alive, looked around as the white light that had enveloped him dissipated. For the past day or so (he thought it had only been a day, he wasn't sure), the white ring that had latched onto his hand had been dragging him from one place to the next, the only link between them all being the presence of someone who, like himself, was lucky enough to have been resurrected after the Blackest Night. Twelve people, hero and villain alike, brought back to life for some unknown reason. Boston thought perhaps the ring was trying to show him the reason, but if that was the case, it was doing a horrible job so far. Take his current pit-stop, for instance: he was standing in the middle of a deserted two-lane road, bordered on either side by vacant fields. Dawn was just beginning to break, casting a warm, red-gold glow over everything. "Very pretty," Boston said, "but I don't get it. What am I supposed to be seeing here?"
[Balance], the white ring answered.
"Want to clarify that a little more?" Before the ring could do so, Boston heard a groan come from the field to his right. Thinking someone might be hurt, he started to head towards the noise, which seemed to be located near a stout tree about fifteen feet away from the roadside. He soon spotted a young man curled up in a blanket laying beneath it, with a duffle bag and a gray cowboy hat sitting right beside him. The man's face was pinched as he groaned and thrashed in his sleep. "Is this your idea of 'balance'? Some guy having a nightmare?" Boston asked the ring, and he wasn't surprised when he didn't receive an answer.
Suddenly, the young man jerked upright, panting like he'd just run a marathon as he stared at the world around him with wide, frightened eyes. Then he placed a hand on the right side of his face, and somehow the action calmed him. All the while, Boston examined every aspect of the man in the hope that he could figure out why he'd been brought here, but to no avail. To Boston's eyes, the man was a nobody, a stranger, not important in the least...but if that was the case, then why did the white ring bring him here to see the man? "This would be a lot easier if you'd just let me talk to people," Boston grumbled.
As the words left Boston's mouth, the man stiffened, then looked directly over to where he stood. This was quite a shock to Boston, as he hadn't been able to interact with anyone since the white ring started bouncing him all around the place. But before he could take advantage to the possible connection he'd made with the young man, the white light began to envelop Boston once more, pulling him away from there. "No, not yet!" Boston yelled as everything began to fade from view. "Let me at least find out who he is first!"
[Balance], the white ring replied, cryptic as ever.
Jonah Hex stared at the spot where the brilliantly-white figure had been, trying to decide whether what he'd seen was a remnant of his nightmare or some new side-effect of his altered vision. To be sure, there was nothing there now, so he chalked it up to the former and tried to put it out of his mind as he surveyed the rest of the landscape, which was the same monochromatic hue it had been when he'd gone to sleep the night before. Ever since Jonah's resurrection three days ago, the only colors he could see were the ones generated by the emotional state of any living creature, with the rest of the world being rendered in a dull palette. To his eyes, the rising sun in the east was nothing but a vibrant white sphere nestled in a sea of gray, but he gazed upon it anyways and thought of when he left Maggie yesterday morning, and how she'd sparkled like a rainbow against that other dun-colored dawn. All those swirls of violet and blue and indigo dancing about her...it was such an intimate thing to see, almost like peeking into her mind.
Be nice if'n Ah could shut it off, though, Jonah thought with a sigh, then looked down at his hands: a strong green edged with yellow, and a faint violet that faded as his thoughts turned away from Maggie. Green came up a lot in his aura, and sometimes he'd see red or blue as well, depending on what his mind was dwelling on, but the yellow had never left him since he'd been reborn in the desert. Not surprising, since he had a lot to be afraid of, first and foremost being the notion that he'd be stuck like this forever, alive on the outside but dead on the inside, thanks to the black ring lodged in his chest. Secondary to that was the nightmares that plagued him when he slept: memories of when he was fully dead, with his soul trapped inside his stuffed and mounted corpse, unable to let anyone know of the torment he was in. The only thing that kept him from being consumed by fear was the thought that Green Lantern would be able to fix him. It had been a long time (from Jonah's point of view) since he'd last seen the hero, but he remembered Hal was a good man, plus he'd been involved in the nonsense that had resurrected Jonah in the first place, so who better to turn to for help?
Jonah's stomach growled, so he put an end to his ruminations and turned his mind towards breakfast. He dug through the duffle bag until he produced a cellophane-wrapped package of crackers slathered with peanut butter, courtesy of Maggie's pantry. He wasn't familiar with the sticky concoction, but he soon found it to be a far sight better than those "Pop-Tart" things Maggie had also tossed in the bag. Those tasted like an unholy marriage of hardtack and cake icing, much to Jonah's disgust, and were quickly abandoned by the side of the road last night. As he ate, he consulted the map so that he could get his bearings for the day. He'd spent a good portion of yesterday on foot, though Jonah had managed to hitch a brief ride with a man who'd dropped him off near someplace called Barstow. That was mid-afternoon, so Jonah had kept on walking on through sunset, doing his level best to avoid sleep for as long as possible. But eventually, exhaustion had forced him to stagger away from the moonlit road and collapse at his current location...which meant he now only had a vague idea of where he was. Placing his thumb over the dot representing Barstow, Jonah slid his index finger up and to the left as he guesstimated how far he'd travelled over the course of the night, finally coming to rest on an unmarked section of map. "Yep, just whut Ah reckoned...middle of nowhere," he said around a mouthful of crackers. "Nice tuh know folks ain't crowded up every last bit of the Earth yet."
Once the crackers were gone, Jonah took a few swigs of bottled water (the existence of which puzzled him to no end: he knew California was an arid state, but was it really necessary to sell folks water in bottles?), then packed up his gear and got back on the ankle express. He would have preferred a horse for such a long journey, but as the old saying went, beggars couldn't be choosers, so the best he could hope for was to hitch a ride should anyone happen to drive down the road. By the time the sun was good and clear of the horizon, however, Jonah could see that his luck was taking its usual bad turn: over a dozen vehicles had roared past, most going in the wrong direction, while the ones heading Jonah's way were oblivious to his outstretched thumb. "Gonna be one of them days," he muttered as yet another automobile left him in the dust.
The sun climbed higher, and Jonah trudged on, the brim of his hat pulled low over his eyes - his altered vision caused them to be sensitive to bright light, and daylight in particular made him feel like he was half-blind. Due to this, he almost walked straight into a sign posted alongside the road. Luckily, the shadow of it caught Jonah's attention before such an embarrassing situation could occur, and he paused to squint at it. The sign was made of a rectangular sheet of metal, the same as many of road signs he'd seen over the past couple of days, and like all the others, its message was short and succinct. In this case, it read:
Welcome to
PARADISE CORNERS
Jonah spent a good minute looking at the sign, his head tilted ever so slightly to the left. Ah've seen this afore, he thought. Not exactly like this, but the words...the same words. He ran a hand over the sign as he tried to dredge up the memory, but he kept coming up empty, and it disturbed him. It wasn't the fact that he'd forgotten something - that was perfectly natural, he'd forgotten things before - but he kept getting the sensation that a large chunk of his life had been ripped out of his mind, leaving behind only tattered bits that hinted at what used to be there. Maybe thet's really the case, he told himself. Yuh spent over a hunnert years by yer lonesome, an' yer mind had pretty much cracked tuh pieces by the end of it. So maybe when yuh got put back together, some of them pieces got left out...but if'n thet's so, then whut else might be missin' up there? The yellow in his aura flared up as he considered the possibility that, on top of everything else that was wrong with him, he now couldn't trust his own memory. "Just take it as it comes, Jonah boy," he said aloud, skirting around the sign and continuing down the road. "Ain't no sense in worryin' about something yuh cain't even remember, right?"
About a quarter-mile down the road, Jonah spotted a few houses, then the edge of what he assumed to be Paradise Corners proper. Compared to other modern towns he'd seen so far, this one was relatively small, but to his 19th Century eyes, it still had an air of prosperity with its many brick buildings and paved streets. Hoping perhaps he'd come across something that existed from his time and would help jog his fractured memory, Jonah walked all throughout the town, his eyes going from one building to the next. Sadly, though he saw many structures that appeared to have been standing for quite a long time, none of them looked like they would have existed in the 1800s. The closest he got was when he found an old cannon sitting on a pedestal in the middle of the town square - a war memorial, he realized upon closer inspection - but even that appeared to have only come into existence around the same time as something called World War I, whatever that was. During his self-guided tour, Jonah passed quite a few townsfolk who were also out and about that morning. Most of them seemed too focused on whatever business people in this century occupied themselves with to pay him any mind, but some were friendly enough to give Jonah a nod or smile when their paths happened to cross - after a hundred-odd years of being ignored, small gestures like that were like a balm for Jonah's wounded soul, and he soon found himself flashing a very genuine smile right back at them.
At the far end of town, Jonah passed by an old church with a tall wrought-iron fence running alongside it. There were a large number of people gathered behind the fence, whom Jonah figured were engaged in some kind of church social and therefore ignored them in favor of gazing upon the church itself. Unfortunately, like everything else he'd seen within Paradise Corners, it failed to make any sort of connection with him, and he was beginning to get frustrated over the matter. Ah wish Ah could recollect something 'bout this place, he thought, even if it was just a little thing. Don't seem right thet Ah kin remember the name an' nothin' else. Must've been important tuh me somehow, way back when, or else why would the name have stuck in muh head fer so long?
As he stood at the foot of the steps pondering this, he heard a voice call out to him, "Hey! We're all back here already!" Confused, Jonah turned to see a man waving to him from behind the fence. "You're a couple of hours late, but don't worry, there's still a lot to do," he said.
"Whut in the Sam Hill are yuh talkin' about?" Jonah replied as he walked towards the man, who was a bright shade of indigo to Jonah's eyes.
The man cocked an eyebrow. "You're not here for the cleanup?"
"Cleanup of whut?" Then Jonah looked past the man and into the area beyond the fence and realized it was a cemetery, or at least the remains of one: every grave within it had been torn open, every headstone tossed aside, and every coffin shattered to splinters. Despite this, no corpses could be seen, for they had all been reanimated by the black and sent out across the land three nights ago, dead soldiers in a war whose climax had rendered them all to dust...all except one long-forgotten cowboy named Jonah Hex. Respectfully, he removed his hat and watched as some of the townsfolk did their level best to bring some order to that chaos. Men and women alike repositioned headstones or took up shovels to fill in graves, and he even saw children helping to pick up debris. Throughout it all, each one of them gave off the same indigo aura as the man Jonah was speaking to, just wave after wave of compassion spilling over the scarred soil. There ain't even no bodies left tuh put in them graves, but they still care enough tuh make it look proper again, Jonah thought.
"It's overwhelming, isn't it?" the man said, as if he'd read Jonah's mind. "You look at it and think, 'There's no way this can ever be made right again.' But it can be made right, it just takes time." He gestured towards another part of town, saying, "We took care most of the plots over in Sacred Heart Cemetery yesterday, and there's still a few people putting the finishing touches over there right now, laying sod and things like that. This one's a lot smaller, though, so we should be done before sundown."
"Yo're good people fer doin' this," Jonah said quietly. "The folks thet was buried here...Ah know they'd thank yuh if'n they could."
"Seemed the best thing to do. It wouldn't be right to forget about them just because they're not here anymore." The man started to turn away from the fence. "I should get back to work. You have a good day, sir, and God bless."
Jonah stood by the fence for a few minutes and watched the volunteers work at their grim task, then he made his way down the length of it until he reached the gate. Settling his hat back upon his head, he walked into the cemetery and over to a middle-aged woman shoveling dirt, her face red from exertion. Without a word, Jonah gently took the shovel from her and assumed her place beside the open grave. No one asked who he was, and he didn't offer to tell them, he just became another volunteer amongst many.
What followed was a long, hot day filled with back-breaking labor, but Jonah didn't utter one word of complaint about it. To him, helping out in this task was the least he could do after the damage he'd caused when the black had a hold of him. It wasn't exactly guilt that he felt, more like anger at letting himself be used to harm innocent people. In his old life, he'd killed hundreds of men, but he felt that each one of them deserved what they got. Nekron, however, targeted every living soul, and in doing so made Jonah spill the blood of those who had never hurt anyone. Maybe thet's the reason Ah came back when nobody else did, he thought as he filled yet another empty grave. Maybe Ah got chose tuh serve penance fer all those innocents thet us dead folks killed, an' now the Lord's gonna do tuh me like He done tuh Job back in Bible times. Reckon thet ain't even remotely fair, considerin' the misfortunes Ah've already suffered, but then again, the Lord's always seen fit tuh make me a right fine scapegoat.
Around midday, another group of volunteers began to pass out sandwiches they'd made, along with some bottled drinks, and everyone took a well-deserved break. Despite the general air of acceptance he'd received from these people so far, Jonah still felt like the odd man out, so he retreated with his lunch to a relatively-isolated portion of the cemetery that had already been fixed up. In that area, he found a large amount of headstones that had been nearly worn smooth by the elements. Must be from when Paradise Corners was new, he thought, which led to an idea. He began to walk slowly up and down the rows, eating his sandwich as he read each of the old markers as best he could. Most of the names meant nothing to him, or were too generic to dredge up a memory - he found at least five that bore the surname "Smith" - then he came across one that jumped right out at him. Thornton...thet kind of rings a bell. He got down on his haunches, polishing off the last bit of sandwich while he looked at the stone. Between the weathering and his sunblind eyes, though, it was almost impossible to read the rest of the inscription. So he scooped up a handful of fresh earth and rubbed it over the front of the stone, until the earth had worked its way into the faint impressions that remained upon it. "Christina Thornton," Jonah read aloud. "Born...it's eighteen-something, or it used tuh be. Died 1879. Love...no, beloved. Beloved Mother." The last word struck a chord within him, bringing forth an image in his mind: a woman being held at gunpoint by some rough-looking man, while a little boy begged for someone to help his ma. Not someone...me. The boy was beggin' me to save her. Did Ah save her? Or did Ah fail, an' thet's why she was buried here?
He couldn't remember. Just like with the name of the town, he could feel this gaping hole in his mind where the knowledge used to be. Ain't nobody Ah kin ask 'bout it, neither. Everybody from back then is dead an' gone...'cept fer me. But thet's the way it's always been, ain't it? Everyone dies, an 'Ah keep right on livin', even when Ah don't deserve tuh do so. Jonah got to his feet and started to walk towards the cemetery gates. Part of him still wanted to stay and help these townsfolk with repairing all the damage, but a bigger part of him felt sick in the heart and belly, and that was the part that won out. A few people that he passed noticed his look of distress and asked if he was okay, but he ignored them. How in blazes could he begin to explain what was really wrong with him? Better to stay silent and take care of the problem the way he always had in the past.
There was a liquor store about three blocks away from the cemetery, and though Maggie hadn't given Jonah a lot of money, there was enough for him to buy the cheapest bottle of rotgut the store had. Jonah hadn't touched one drop of liquor since his resurrection, and when he took his first swallow as he exited the store, it burned down his throat like liquid fire. He gagged a little, but it didn't stop him from taking another swig as he walked over to the town square. There were benches all along the perimeter, and Jonah rested his weary bones down upon one so that he could fully enjoy his purchase. Best thing tuh come outta muh resurrection is thet Ah don't have tuh worry 'bout any booze spillin' through a hole in muh face no more, he thought.
Jonah took his time with the bottle, making it last for well over an hour. In between swallows, he noticed that some of the folks passing by gave him sour looks, so he started to give them right back, even going to far as to holler at one elderly lady walking past him, "Y'all got a problem with a fella tryin' tuh relax?" That got her moving in a hurry.
By the time he'd nearly reached the bottom of the bottle, a shadow fell over him from behind the bench, and a voice said, "Good afternoon, sir. Would you mind standing up, please?"
Jonah turned his head to see a policeman making his way around to the front of the bench. Giving him a bleary-eyed smile, Jonah got up, saying, "There a problem, officer?"
"I've gotten a few calls about someone harassing people in this area. You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you?"
"Not a bit. Ah've been a-sittin' here fer a good long while now, an' Ah ain't seen one lick of trouble."
"Is that so?" The policeman looked him over, then said, "I don't recall seeing you in town before. You new around here?"
Jonah chuckled, "Ah'm new everywhere these days."
"Then that means you don't know about the local law about public drunkenness."
"Drunk? Hell, Ah ain't drunk." Actually, Jonah was feeling rather tipsy, which was odd to him: it usually took a lot more than just one small bottle of liquor to get him this soused. The idea that the same force that had erased all his scars might have also erased his high tolerance for alcohol never occurred to him.
"Are you willing to take a Breathalyzer test to prove it?"
"Come again?" he replied, and thought to himself, Hell, maybe Ah am drunk if'n Ah cain't understand English. As he puzzled over the words, Jonah caught sight of the policeman's name plate, pinned on his uniform next to his badge. "Thornton...yer name's Thornton?" he asked incredulously. "Damnation, if'n thet ain't one Hell of a coincidence..."
"Sir, I'm going to ask you to follow me to my car." As the policeman talked, he reached for Jonah's duffle bag sitting on the bench. Jonah saw this and immediately made grab for it himself, yanking it out of the Officer Thornton's hand. Unfortunately for Jonah, the policeman managed to catch the bag's strap, and the force of the two men pulling in opposite directions caused it to rip open along one of the seams. The blanket inside spilled halfway out like a flannel tongue, while the map, his Dragoons, and a few provisions fell onto the sidewalk.
"Dammit, boy, why'd yuh have tuh go an' do thet?" Jonah said as he knelt down to pick up his belongings, starting with the Dragoons. "Ah ain't got much left in this world, an' Ah surely don't appreciate y'all..."
A sound reached Jonah's ears, one that he hadn't heard in over a century, but he knew intimately: the sound of a hand slapping leather and drawing cold iron. His hand hovering inches above his ancient revolvers, Jonah glanced up to see Thornton pointing a gun of his own directly at the former bounty hunter. "Sir, step away from the weapons and put your hands on top of your head!" the policeman ordered, his aura a frantic swirl of green, red, and yellow.
Well now, this day just keeps on gettin' better an' better, Jonah thought.
NEXT ISSUE: You knew it was coming..."Trouble in Paradise"!