The Land of the Dead – 01

Disclaimer: None of the characters are mine, but belong to Impossible Pictures™.

-6-

Helen's shot fired like a cannon; Nick could only blink once in confusion, before he fell and the fog in the sky – or was it only in his eyes? – began to close in. "Tell Claudia Brown," he muttered weakly, "tell Claudia Brown..."

"Sorry, mate," a voice that was definitely not Claudia's, but very familiar all the same, "I haven't seen Claudia for a long, long time, and probably won't see her longer yet. The same goes for you as well, but at least we'll have each other for company, hopefully..."

Nick's eyes opened wide. There was no fog, there was no smog, and the weather was rather unlike anything that the good old dreary England had ever thrown at him. "Stephen!" he said, excitedly. "Is that you?"

"Yup," Stephen nodded. "It's me. And this is the lighthouse."

"What lighthouse?"

"Where I've lived since I died. Speaking of deaths – how did yours go?"

"Helen shot me. Helen shot me? I'm dead?"

"Yes," Stephen nodded, this time more solemnly. "And – she shot you? How could she?"

"In hindsight I suspect me and the others getting the best of her – again – and then I doing a bit of gloating while she was armed, dangerous and probably mentally unstable was not the smartest thing to do," Nick said sheepishly. "Anyways, let's talk about someplace else. Got to admit this doesn't look like any sort of afterlife that I expected to end up at."

"Well, it doesn't have the garden – or is it the tree? – of Eden, but there are giant long-necked dinosaurs, and meat-eating dinosaurs, and there's this rather neat family of stegosaurs, kind of like ducks, only with four legs... and spikes... and armoured plates on their backs... and not very duck-like behaviour..."

"I get the picture," Nick said, seeing how Stephen was about to get carried away. "Are there any people, though?"

"...No," Stephen admitted, his excitement souring once again. "No people and no signs of civilization. Thought that I saw smoke several times, but I couldn't be sure, and it could've been wildfires instead, to begin with."

"Point," Nick admitted. "So, no people, but plenty of dinosaurs and what-not. Someone in the universe has a sense of humour, I believe, or of something else."

"Yup," Stephen nodded, sombrely. "Anyways, I've been sketching some crude maps as far as my eye could see, and, well, here they are."

For several good long minutes Nick just stared at Stephen's maps, long enough for him to grow worried. "Something's wrong?" the younger man finally said.

"Stephen, this is canvas. It's been artificially whitened somehow, but it's still canvas. You've drawing on canvas," Nick spoke in a somewhat dazed tone.

"Really?" Stephen sounded more confused than apologetic, which is probably how he felt. "So what?"

"I'm not sure," Nick admitted. "It's just – I don't know – I never seen anyone draw on canvas, especially in charcoal. Anyways, what's your point?"

"I'm not sure," Stephen admits slowly, "but now that you're here, and I'm already here, maybe we should go exploring or something? It's just a thought."

Nick ponders about this for less than ten minutes – just enough to have Stephen to begin to worry (an impromptu payback for the canvas thing). "Well, why not," he finally says. "It's not like we don't have an eternity to spend with each other, and it's not like we can die anymore, now can we? We'll leave first thing tomorrow."

"Great!" Stephen grinned as he hadn't grinned for a long while, and Nick found himself grinning back. It sounded funny (funny as in weird or strange), but it appeared that with his death he began to properly live at last, as he dreamed of living... if it wasn't for his mother, admittedly. Maybe he really ought to thank Helen when (or if) they'll meet again, but hopefully it won't be for a while.

And Nick was correct about one thing – he didn't run into Helen for a while...but this 'while' was shorter than what he had expected...

To be continued...