Mark Rogers - The Dead

“Got your wind back, Lucy?” Uncle Buddy asked.

“No!” she replied.

“Tough,” Max said. “Here we go!”

They pushed forward again, around the bend, and shortly after that, around a second turn. Ahead was the sewer’s end, a circle of grayish light. The grate appeared to be down. They moved swiftly toward the opening.

But one last culvert showed on the right, midway up the passage. Max slowed to check it, Gary coming up beside him.

About three yards in was a pile of leaves and brush, partially blocking the tunnel, more than large enough to conceal a body. The brothers trained their weapons on it, going slowly closer. They began probing the pile with their gun-barrels.

At his second thrust, Gary felt something pluck at his rifle. Immediately he screamed and squeezed off a burst, leaping back.

“What, what?” Max cried, pointing his shotgun at the smoking spot in the pile.

“Something grabbed-” Gary began, then noticed a piece of branch stuck into his rifle’s front sight. “Goddamn twig tangled in it.”

Steve and Uncle Dennis rushed up.

“You all right?” Dennis asked.

“False alarm,” Max said.

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”

Dennis and Steve headed back to the main.

Max searched the darkness beyond the pile with his flashlight. Gary kept looking at the debris.

It shifted slightly, almost imperceptibly. Gary cursed, and his muzzle flew back down. But Max shoved the H and K to one side.

“Something moved!” Gary cried.

“Let’s not make a habit of wasting ammo, okay?” Max said, turned, and walked away.

“Max, I’m sure…” Gary said, then ran after him. Had he seen anything at all? He looked over his shoulder, but without Max’s light, there was only blackness…

Once back in the main, they pressed on toward its mouth.

“I’m sorry Max,” Gary said. “But I really thought I-”

There came a sound like rattling brush, and a clatter of movement from the culvert they had left behind; a triumphant shriek rang out.

Gary spun, seized with a frantic certainty that Linda had been caught. It didn’t even occur to him that anyone else could be in danger. He had seen something move in the debris, and Linda was dead now, and it was all Max’s fault… Rage and horror exploding within him, Gary sped back along the main.

But as the women came dashing forward into the flashlight beams, he saw Linda among them, and once he swept past, the lights revealed a small, almost dwarfish male corpse, flecked with leaves, squatting atop cousin Dave’s chest, clutching Dave’s throat with its right claw. Uncle Buddy had thrown an arm around its neck, but the corpse had his other wrist, holding his gun hand out to the side.

“Buddy, let go!” Steve cried, rushing up with his rifle. Buddy loosed the corpse’s neck just as Steve let fly, ripping through the cadaver’s right arm.

Yet the undead hand kept its grip, and Dave went suddenly limp as the fingers closed with terrible finality, crushing windpipe and bone, forcing a powerful blackening rush of blood up into his face.

Grinning, the corpse rose and loosed Buddy’s gun hand, to swipe at Steve. Barely dodging the stroke, Steve blasted slugs into the corpse’s midsection, hammering it off its feet. Stepping forward, he started in on the thing’s head and limbs.

Buddy threw himself to his knees beside Dave, dropping his gun he cradled his son’s head with both hands, rocking it back and forth. Dave’s neck was slack as a rubber band.

Gary watched, overcome with pity, unable to hear his uncle’s cries over the sound of Steve’s gunfire. All at once he remembered how Max had fucked up; Linda hadn’t bought it, but Dave had. Gary felt a strange and wicked satisfaction.

Steve stopped shooting. The corpse on the floor, vocal cords destroyed, was hissing like a huge snake; the screams of the corpses left by the shelter echoed in the distance. Aunt Lucy ran up sobbing, knelt alongside her husband and son.

“I told you I saw something!” Gary cried.

Uncle Buddy looked up at Max. “He warned you?”

Max nodded, looking shaken.

“You motherfucker!” Buddy shouted. “You got my son killed, you know that?”

Max slowly put a hand to his forehead. “Oh God,” he said. “I’m so sorry…”

“I bet you are, you son of a bitch!”

Max said nothing. Eyeing him, seeing the shock on his face, Gary felt his satisfaction fade. If Max was vulnerable, if he could fuck up enough to get someone killed, where did that leave them all? In spite of everything, Max was the most capable leader they had. That was one of Gary’s reasons for resenting him after all…

“Say something, you cocksucker!” Buddy shouted.

Max’s hand dropped from his brow. He straightened. “I can’t bring him back, Uncle Buddy,” he said.

“Is that all?” Buddy screamed. “My son’s dead, and that’s all you have to say?”

Before Max could reply, the shrieks in the distance grew suddenly much louder. It could only mean one thing; they had broken into the shelter at last. They were coming, maybe were already in the main, dozens, maybe scores of them.

Lucy pried Buddy away from his son. The group bolted for the pipe mouth.

There the sewer emptied into two feet of cold water on the fringe of Lake Heloise. Max and Gary rounded the corner of the drain.

Between them and the beach stood a single tall female mummy, rock-still in a green silk dress. Someone had put a hunting arrow in her brow; she’d broken off the fletching, but a Copperhead Ripper tip stuck several inches out of her hair. Behind her in a vacant lot a red Ford van sputtered smokily away.

Gary raised his rifle. The dead woman lunged, snatching the barrel. He put a burst into her shoulder, but she wrenched the gun from his hands.

Max aimed at her face. She brought Gary’s gun up in front of it. Max shot her in the chest instead, toppling her.

Slinging the Remington over his shoulder, he yanked his machete from its belt. Wailing; wailing like a banshee, the corpse exploded back to her feet in a furious muddy splash, swinging the H and K blindly.

Max ducked the blow, slashed her across the knees. She fell once more, but her right arm still waved above the water, lashing the rifle back and forth.

Max severed her wrist, snatched the gun in midair, and hacked the hand from the barrel. Water bursting from her screaming mouth, she jackknifed up through the surface; Max emptied the clip into her face, punching her from sight once more. Then he flung the gun back to Gary.

“Reload,” he said.

Gasping, Gary fumbled to obey as they splashed toward the beach with the others. Screaming echoes swelled in the drain pipe behind.

“The van!” Max cried.

They crossed the sand, rushed up the weedy slope to the vacant lot. Max and Gary looked through the windows in the rear doors of the van, guns ready. Inside, the floor was stacked two deep with inert corpses, their throats blotched with marks of strangulation.

“Recruits,” Max said. “Wonder if they were going to load us in here?”

Gary opened the doors. “Should we try to pull them out?” he asked breathlessly.

“No time now,” Max answered. “We can toss ‘em out once we get roll-”

He broke off as the engine died.

“Jesus,” he said. “Oh Jesus Christ. ”

Uncle Buddy was already behind the wheel, but work the key as he might, he couldn’t get the engine to wheeze back to life.

“Make a run for it?” Steve asked.

Max was looking off to the west. Gary looked too; at least thirty figures were striding mechanically through the smoking ruins toward them.