by Dave Barnowski
Jim Corrigan was blindfolded, and his hands and feet were tied. He could tell he was sitting in a wooden chair because of its hardness, as the horizontal slats were biting into his back. His first inclination was to move, but he instead feigned unconsciousness.
He heard the sounds of multiple pairs of feet walking and pacing on cement floors, but no voices. This was odd, very odd. He was reflecting on the strangeness when he heard a high, shrill male voice say, “He’s awake now. They’re all awake. Pick him up and bring him here.”
Corrigan felt two sets of big hands reach under his shoulders and carry him. The owners of the hands didn’t grunt with his weight, and he could tell they were at least as tall as his own six-foot-one-inch height. They carried him roughly, rather than dragging him.
“Take his blindfold off,” ordered the shrill voice.
Corrigan opened his eyes and stared at the short man with black hair and a mustache. He recognized where he was immediately, for it was the very same building where he had first died. The fear caused by his post-traumatic stress disorder started to rise. Someone had refurbished the warehouse. That is not to say that it wasn’t seedy-looking or somewhat rundown, but somebody had upgraded it in the past fifty years, or it would have fallen down by now.
He didn’t see his fellow JSA members, and he didn’t look around to see if he could find them, because that would give the short man in front of him a feeling of satisfaction. Corrigan did note that there were twelve goons, including the leader and the two holding him up, in his peripheral vision. Six of them were carrying Uzi submachine guns, and the other three had sawed-off shotguns.
“It is so nice to meet you at last, old man. Do you know where you are?” asked the short man.
Corrigan nodded, hoping he didn’t show any signs of fear.
The short man slapped Corrigan hard across the mouth. “Answer verbally — yes or no?”
Corrigan could taste the hot blood in his mouth as he said, “Yes, I know where I am.”
“You know what you did here?” asked the short man.
Corrigan thought for a moment before answering, “I saved my then-fiancée, Clarice Winston.”
The short man kicked Corrigan in the right kneecap then. “Wrong answer! Think again.”
“I died,” said Corrigan with a groan from the pain.
The short man then hit him again, this time in the stomach. “Still not the answer I’m looking for, Spectre. I know what you became that day — a monster. Now tell me what you did that day.”
Corrigan took another look at the short man and saw a resemblance to a man he tried not to think about. “I executed two men, and drove your father to madness.”
“You didn’t kill him like the others, no,” the short man retorted. “You did something far worse. You stole his sanity. You took a great man and made him into a shell of himself. He became a drifter and ended up dying in a prison hospital thirty years later as a deranged lunatic thanks to you! (*) You robbed me of my own father!”
[(*) Editor’s note: See “The Spectre Means Death?” The Spectre #5 (July-August, 1968).]
And Guns Benson started to pound the defenseless Jim Corrigan with pent-up rage.
***
Sanderson Hawkins, also known as Sleeper, silently made his way along the wharfs of Cliffland. He was getting closer to the warehouse where he had witnessed the JSA being taken. He had to be stealthy, as the area was heavily guarded by armed thugs, whose numbers he was reducing as he moved forward.
Sleeper had been in one of the back seats of the JSA Shuttle Jet when it crashed into Lake Erie. Structurally, the plane was one of the strongest aircraft in existence and a pinnacle of modern design. Yet, it had taken all of Hourman’s piloting skill to crash it into the lake on the undercarriage instead of nose first.
The impact of the crash had been jolting. James Corrigan, the powerless alter ego of the Spectre, had been knocked unconscious, while the three costumed heroes on board — Hourman, Doctor Mid-Nite, and Sleeper — were momentarily stunned. By the time they regained their senses, the ship had taken in a significant amount of water. This prevented Hourman from taking his famous Miraclo pill. Rex “Tick-Tock” Tyler had created a water-soluble version of his patented pill so that it would activate instantly when consumed, similar to the way nitroglycerin pills work for heart patients.
Doctor Mid-Nite immediately attended to the unconscious Corrigan, while asking for assistance in getting him out of the plane. As they worked on their fallen comrade, they devised a plan. Hourman and Doctor Mid-Nite emerged from the water, towing the unconscious Jim Corrigan, while Sleeper remained submerged.
Sleeper’s gas mask allowed him to breathe underwater for short periods of time. He observed the JSA members being captured and taken prisoner. He utilized the wirepoon gun, made famous by his mentor, the Sandman, to latch onto one of the boats as they returned to Cliffland. With only his head above water, he watched as the JSAers were unloaded from the boats under heavy guard. They were now bound and had their weapons confiscated before being taken into the warehouse. Hourman’s Miraclo belt and Red Robin’s utility belt were both taken from them. Doctor Mid-Nite’s medical bag was in the possession of a particularly ugly thug, who was also carrying the Huntress’s crossbow and purse.
Underneath his mask, Sleeper smiled as he defeated the last criminal guard outside the warehouse. He knew that these foolish crooks would mistakenly believe that the JSA was no longer a threat, now that they were disarmed and restrained. Sanderson Hawkins, however, knew better. The thugs inside the warehouse were equally as doomed as the one he’d just taken down.
***
James Corrigan was being beaten to death. In fact, he should have died minutes ago. Guns Benson, the small, wiry man who was the leader of the gang of cutthroat drug dealers that had captured the JSAers, was the one doing the beating, as two big, beefy thugs held up the police detective. Corrigan’s teeth were all broken, just like his jaw and ribs. Guns was breathing heavily and had to stop punishing the man who robbed him of his father.
“Why don’t you die?” he asked in a high, whiny, almost squeaky voice.
Guns’ answer came from within his head. It was the voice whose advice he had followed to become the head of Cliffland’s organized crime. He had been but a lowly soldier when he gave the voice his shadow in exchange for power. “Corrigan has the Ring of Life. Take the ring with the red stone from his hand, and he will die instantly.”
Behind Corrigan and the three gangsters was the original body of Jim Corrigan encased in cement. The JSA sat tied in slatted wooden chairs ten feet farther back. Red Robin, the Huntress, Hourman, Doctor Mid-Nite, and Wildcat, along with the retired Cliffland City Police Detective Wayne Grant, had a goon with an Uzi submachine gun behind each of them, with their equipment laid at their feet. They had awakened one at a time and pretended to stay asleep, except for Wayne Grant, who was snoring loudly as drool ran down his chin.
The JSA had quietly made eye contact with another ally on their immediate periphery. After having years of experience working together, they were about to rectify the current situation in their classic style when they saw Sleeper crawling among the rafters. As Sleeper watched the scene below, he saw the slightest of nods from Red Robin, his closest friend in the JSA besides the Sandman.
“Hold out his hand,” said Guns Benson. “I need to take his ring off.” The gangster on Corrigan’s left brought up his hand. “Not his wedding ring, you idiot! Marion, hold up the other one.”
Corrigan knew the jig was up. Once they took the Ring of Life off his right hand, he was going to die, but not quietly, because one weird benefit of his rapid aging was that his wounds healed as rapidly as he aged. Unexpectedly, he stood upright, throwing the two goons at his side momentarily off-balance. Then he kicked Guns right in the crotch with his right leg. As he did, he lifted his other leg off the ground so the two men holding him now came even more off-balance. The one on Corrigan’s left lost his grip. Corrigan grimly smiled a toothless smile as he turned and sharply hit the man on his right, who was still holding him, sharply in the throat, causing him to also let go of the detective as he fell to the ground holding his throat.
The men behind the JSA watched with mild amusement as this stupid cop tried to fight for his life. They all knew he was going to die, anyway. He was just making it tougher for himself. One of them had started to try a betting competition on how long the pig would last by the time the JSA acted.
Sleeper watched from his position up in the rafters of the old warehouse as each individual JSAer took down the goon standing behind him. He fired his own wirepoon gun into one of the rafters on the other side of the building and swung down to help Jim Corrigan, then shot his gas-gun at the thug standing behind Corrigan’s old partner, Wayne Grant. Sleeper smiled, seeing that everything was going as planned, until he noticed the small, reedy-voiced leader of the drug cartel pull out a pistol. He knew he couldn’t reach Corrigan in time.
Jim Corrigan was busy dispatching the remaining thug who had been holding him up so their boss could use the police detective as a human punching bag. With two quick karate chops to the man’s head and neck, Corrigan quickly took him down. Guns Benson had already recovered from the kick to the groin.
Corrigan heard the whiny voice of Guns Benson crying, “Turn around, pig! Turn around and go to Hell!”
Turning, Corrigan’s eyes widened as he saw the revolver in Guns’ hand. They were at point blank range. There was no way the little man could miss. Corrigan froze, and Guns emptied his firearm into the man who had killed his father.
Intense pain shot through Corrigan as the bullets ripped through his flesh. He knew he was a dead man again as his legs gave out from under him. Guns laughed shrilly as the man he had hated for a lifetime started to fall to the ground. His laughter stopped suddenly as Sleeper slammed into him from behind. Both Sleeper and Guns crashed into the falling Corrigan, causing the three of them to fall on top of the original body of James Corrigan. Guns heard the voice in his head wail, “No-o-o-o-o-o!”
James Corrigan should have died from the bullets fired by Guns, but the Ring of Life kept him alive long enough to touch his original body, allowing him to reestablish contact with the Spectre. James Corrigan disappeared, and the Spectre now stood in the warehouse.
The Ghostly Guardian saw that Sleeper and the JSA had the situation well in hand, so he immediately went to the rift in reality that allowed Shathan the Eternal to gather followers once more in Earth’s dimension. He was determined to reseal the barrier.
The Spectre was surprised at how tiny was the rift between Earth’s plane of reality and that of Dis, the realm of Shathan. It had been hidden from view because it was on the floor of Lake Erie, and he’d had to shrink down to an almost microscopic size to be able to cross the entrance. Shathan the Eternal — the red-skinned, horned demon with a large potbelly — had been waiting there for him and now attempted to stomp his age-old foe out of existence as soon as he stepped through the gateway.
The Spectre jumped to one side, growing as he did. However, Shathan still managed to grab hold of the Ghostly Guardian when he had only grown to half the demon’s size. Squeezing the Spectre’s neck, Shathan tried to break it, but the Astral Avenger simply became ethereal and passed from Shathan’s grasp.
The demonic ruler of Dis raised his hands, and the ethereal Spectre was buffeted by magical winds in such a way that he was in danger of having his essence drift apart. Grimly, he solidified himself and said, “I want the one hundred and eighty-seven shadows you have collected from my realm, Shathan, plus the small part of Chief O’Malley’s that you kept for your amusement.”
Shathan laughed evilly and replied, “What you want and what you are going to get are two different things, Spectre. You are not as powerful as you once were. And I was always more powerful than you here on my own plane of existence. You are as dead as your human host.”
“I have no human host, Shathan,” replied the Spectre. “I am James Corrigan. The creator of the Spectre gave me sole control over the power of the Spectre even as he diminished it.”
Shathan licked his lips and said, “You’ll not come back from the dead this time, Corrigan, unless you give me your shadow. Then I’ll let you live.”
The Spectre smiled as he touched the Ring of Life. “I have a better idea.” An intense white light and warm sense of well-being started to fill the realm of Dis. “This is the power of the Voice that created the Spectre and the Ring of Life, Shathan. It will soon permeate your entire land unless you surrender the shadows you have taken, including the small portion of O’Malley’s that you still have. You must also seal the rift when I leave.”
Shathan screamed and soon cowered in a fetal position as the sheer goodness overwhelmed him, causing him intense pain and revulsion. He heard screams from the creatures he lorded over, and he knew that he was defeated. Someday in the future, he would again face the Spectre — whether the real Ghostly Guardian or this mortal using his power — and win, but not here and now. He released the shadows, and they flew through the rift.
“Good,” said the Spectre. “Once I go through, we will each have to seal the rift from our respective sides. I will be right back if you do not immediately close your side, Shathan.”
The light and warmth that the Spectre unleashed on Shathan’s realm disappeared when he did. Shathan could hear growling from his subjects, whom he would have to deal with shortly, but first, he had to close his side of the rift. After, he annihilated most of his realm’s subjects out of anger and frustration, further weakening himself in the process.
The Spectre returned through the rift and saw the shadows mingling on the floor of the lake, because they did not have the power to return to their owners. He waved his hand, and they went off to their respective bodies. The small piece of O’Malley’s soul went to the place of rest where the dead policeman now was. Corrigan nodded and smiled when he saw the direction in which the piece of the flawed man’s soul went. James Corrigan then closed his side of the rift before returning to the warehouse.