Mark Rogers - The Dead

He reached a bend in the corridor, raced round it. A doorway appeared up ahead, a moonlit rectangle. He just might reach it in time.

Let it be unlocked. Oh God, let it be unlocked…

He began to grow dizzy from pain and blood loss. Warm fluid cascaded down his arm, spattering his trouser legs, tapping his Frye-boots like rain.

He neared the doors. The sound of pursuit grew suddenly louder; the shriekers had rounded the bend. It wouldn’t be long before they were on him.

He skidded to a halt near the exit, almost falling over.

The doors were chained.

Making one last desperate effort to reload the gun, he fished out a bullet, felt it squirt from between his bloodied fingers, knew he was finished-then realized the bullet had gone into the cylinder. Snapping the wheel closed, he fired at the chain.

The slug passed into the center of a link, bulged its sides without breaking it. Glass shattered in a moonlit spiderweb beneath the release-bar.

He cursed, dropped to his knees, and slammed the pistol-butt into the bullet hole. The glass broke, but it was latticed with tiny steel wires, shatterproof; as the shrieks and footbeats came closer, he struck out again and again, enlarging the hole. When it seemed wide enough, he launched himself headfirst at the opening, felt a brief moment of elation as it allowed him through-

All except his right foot. His trouser cuff had caught on a tooth of glass.

He jerked his leg. Glass snapped, and his foot came forward. He stood up, panting.

A hand clamped onto his ankle, yanking with terrific force. He flailed down on his belly, the hand pulling him back toward the hole in the glass.

He was lying on the landing of a concrete stair. He threw his hands out, tossing the pistol away, fingers locking over the lip of the top step. The gun clattered down toward the parking-lot.

The yanking on his leg grew stronger. Three brutal tugs, and his knee and hip were savagely dislocated. He gasped as his good hand and his all-but limp one gave way, and he was dragged back toward the door on his chin, screaming, struggling. He managed to flop over onto his side, almost onto his back, and before he could be pulled inside, set his free foot against the doorway’s central post, delaying the inevitable for an instant. Then a hand locked onto that foot, dislodged it, and he was wrenched into the screaming darkness.

He swung his fists wildly, striking out at the shadows clustering round him. They grabbed his arms, pressed him flat against the floor. A frigid mouth pushed up against his ear.

“ Mille regretti, ” said a ragged female voice. Then the mouth went to his lips, tongue probing.

Arriving for work in the morning, Mr. Van Nuys’s assistants, Frank and Rodger Debuque, had to let themselves in with their own keys, but they saw nothing sinister in their boss’s absence; occasionally the old man had been known to take an unannounced furlough, usually involving a lot of liquor, a blowsy whore, and a motel out on Rt. 87.

As they made their rounds about the building, they discovered nothing out of the ordinary. Mr. Bullerton’s condition might have tipped them off, but the tools had been removed from his chest, the sheet pulled up over his mutilated face. All seemed in order with the DeWitts as well.

As for the unfortunate Mr. Van Nuys, he was tucked away in an unused ventilation shaft, curled in a fetal position.

Over at the high school, Jeff Purzycki’s blood had been mopped up, and the men sent to replace him found no trace of his body. He’d been shoved into a storm sewer nearby.

But covering up all signs of the night’s events had proved impossible. There were the broken gym doors, and the shattered glass door which Jeff had tried to escape through; also all those ripped-open body bags. Still, without evidence that Jeff had been killed, everything pointed to him having done all the damage himself. He had certainly fired those shots through the gym doors. The fact that the doors had been smashed down from inside was perplexing- though not, perhaps, beyond explanation.

Jack Bingham’s theory, that those ‘dead wops’ had done it all, was summarily dismissed. So was Jack. Later that day the merits of his theory would be all too obvious, a vindication he’d take no comfort in.

Outside Bayside Point, across America and the world, similar mysteries were unfolding. In some places, explanations like Bingham’s had already gained astonished acceptance.

But the news was slow in spreading. The attention of the media was elsewhere, fixed on several transportation disasters, the most horrific of which was a nerve gas spill in Colorado which had already claimed five thousand lives. Several other stories had priority over the hysteria about the walking dead: fish and wildlife kills, problems with complicated technology, and a group of astronomers getting hot and bothered over a small but significant drop in the sun’s radiant energy.

Preparing for the funeral, Gary and Max and Linda were unaware of all this. They were so busy rushing about the house, getting dressed and making meals, they hadn’t turned on the TV. Even if they had, reception would’ve been alternately bad and nonexistent.

The morning drew on toward ten, and they went out to Gary’s Pinto. The first thing Gary noticed was the chill in the air. Even by the standards of the cold snap, the day was brisk; there was a definite reddening of the leaves on the neighborhood trees. Gary cocked an eye at the sun. The sky was very clear, almost bitterly blue, but the sun had an odd watery look.

They got into the car. The engine started-just barely. Gary tried to let it warm up a bit, but it wheezed and died.

He pumped the gas a few times, held the pedal halfway down, and twisted the key again. The engine stuttered back to life. Gary nursed it carefully, looking vacantly back at the house. Suddenly his attention sharpened: was the paint blistering? Peeling off the boards in places? There’d been no sign of that a day ago…

“We’d better get moving,” Max said.

“Right,” Gary answered, and eased the car away from the curb.

They arrived at the funeral parlor to find Buddy and Dennis’s crew already there. Oscar and Rodger Debuque made light of Mr. Van Nuys’s absence, as indeed they had every reason to; they assured the mourners everything would go smoothly, and it did. The families paid last respects to Max Sr., then were ushered from the chapel; fifteen minutes later, the funeral procession was making its way down Beichmann Avenue toward St. Paul’s. When it reached the church, a modest edifice sheathed all in dark shingles, Max and Gary and their uncles bore the coffin inside.

As they moved up the aisle toward the catafalque, Gary noticed a familiar figure among the other mourners: Steve Jennings, his best friend from high school, a tall blond fellow with curly hair. With Steve was a pretty redhead Gary didn’t know: a replacement, perhaps, for the last Mrs. Jennings, who’d disappeared after a boating accident on Barragansett Bay. Gary was somewhat surprised to see Steve in a church; Steve had always shown a tremendous contempt for religion, and had been primarily responsible for setting Gary on the road toward agnosticism. Steve had been almost as much of an intellectual headhunter as Max, in high school terms at least, and he was certainly a whole lot more charming. Gary caught Steve’s eye; Steve nodded toward him. They’d have to have a long talk after the burial. Gary hadn’t seen him in two years.

The bearers laid the casket down, and once they settled in the pews, the service began, Father Ted celebrating the mass, assisted by Father Chuck. The sermon was similar to Father Ted’s oration last night, only longer. Glancing from time to time at Max, Gary was amused at just how livid his brother’s face got. But Max had no choice except to sit there and bear it now. Storming out of a viewing was one thing, but this was the funeral itself.