Mark Rogers - The Dead

“No way,” Max said.

“What about the ones in the pipe?” Dennis demanded. “They’ll be out here any minute.”

“Yeah,” Max said, and hauled two Jerri cans out of the back of the van. “Uncle Buddy, keep trying! Uncle Dennis, come with me. Maybe fire’ll stop the bastards.”

Gary watched them run back down to the pipe. Max tossed the cans inside, then unslung his shotgun. It sounded to Gary as though the dead must almost be upon them; Max and Dennis cut loose with their Remingtons, whether at the corpses or the Jerri cans, Gary didn’t know. The screaming from the tunnel seemed to intensify, if that were possible.

Max held his shotgun at arm’s length and fired. Red light poured from the pipe, out onto the water, flaring over him and Dennis. A huge puff of smoke rolled from under the concrete arch. Max had ignited the gas running down from the ruptured cans.

He and Dennis retreated. Wrapped in flames, two decapitated cadavers came floundering out of the sewer and fell into the water. Rising, they took a few blind steps forward.

Then the gas cans blew. A tremendous ball of yellow flame belched from the pipe mouth, hammering the corpses back into the water.

Gary eyed the pipe. The explosion had cracked it; even as he watched, a smoking skeletal hand punched out through the fissure in a spray of flame and concrete. Another appeared below it; they locked on opposite sides of the crack, almost as though the corpse within was trying madly to force the fissure open further. Then they vanished back inside.

Behind Gary, the van’s engine thumped and ground and suddenly started. Buddy whooped.

Gary turned. Till then, no one but Buddy had entered the van, not knowing if it would start again. Now Lucy jumped in beside him, and Gary and Linda climbed in over the corpses in the back, shuddering at the touch of them, Steve and Sally followed.

Max and Dennis came running back up. Aunt Camille, all three MacAleers, and Father Chuck were still outside.

“What are you waiting for?” Max asked them, and started to climb into the back.

But at that moment, Buddy hit the gas.

The van lurched forward a few yards, almost stalled. Cursing, Max fell to the ground as the van slipped out from under him.

“You killed my fuckin’ son, Max!” Buddy shouted. “My only fuckin’ child! ”

The van picked up speed. Max scrambled up, dashed after it, but it was already too late.

“Are you out of your friggin’ mind?” Gary bellowed to Uncle Buddy, shoving his H and K up against the back of Buddy’s head. “Stop this thing or I’ll blow your brains out.”

The van jounced out onto the ruin-flanked expanse of Carter Avenue. The surrounding desolation was full of figures converging on the vacant lot.

“Go back, or I swear I’ll kill you!” Gary shouted.

“You ain’t got the guts, college boy,” Buddy jeered.

“I mean it!”

“Then kill me. Because I’m not going back for that cocksucker for anything!”

Gary wanted to blow him away. Ached to spray his brains all over the windshield.

But Buddy was right. He didn’t have the guts. And the van was going fast now. If Buddy was killed, it would surely crash…

“But Buddy,” Aunt Lucy said. “You left Dennis back there too.”

“Fuck you, Lucy!” Buddy shouted. “He’ll have to fend for himself. I’m not going back for Max. Dammit, Lucy, he killed Dave! Killed him with his fucking stupidity!”

“Buddy, you can’t-”

“Shut up, bitch!” Buddy cried. “ I’m in charge now, and we’re heading for the hills!” He roared laughter, nodding his head. “Heading for the fucking hills!”

The van barreled up Carter toward Miami Boulevard.

“Where are you going?” Gary cried.

“The Squankum Bridge,” Buddy snapped. “Where do you think?”

“It’ll be blocked, you idiot! Or raised!”

“You let me worry about that. Just start dumping those bodies out the back.”

That at least made sense. The rear doors were still open; laying their rifles aside, Gary and Steve got to work. Stiff and contorted, the bodies struck the pavement without a sign of reflex or response, grotesque manikins.

Buddy took a hard screeching left onto Miami, slamming Gary and Steve into the side of the van. Steve nearly fell out the back.

“Look out, Buddy!” Lucy screamed. “You’re heading right for them!”

Gary staggered up and looked out through the windshield. At least twenty corpses stood in the street ahead, some carrying sickles and brush hooks, one in the middle raised a skeletal hand as if signaling them to stop.

“Yeah, sure,” Buddy laughed, flooring the pedal. The corpses started toward the van at a stiff-legged run.

Gary snatched up his gun and stationed himself on the right side. “Steve,” he said, “take the left.”

Using their rifle butts, they smashed windows. Gary took aim at a corpulent male cadaver brandishing a brush hook and raked a blast across its legs. The corpse dropped to its knees, hurling its weapon at the van. The brush hook banged on metal, bouncing off.

Gary heard Steve firing, then the crunch of shattered safety glass, and Aunt Lucy screaming at the top of her lungs. A sideways glance showed him a concrete brick buried in the windshield directly in front of her.

Gary looked out the side again. A dead Marine in full dress uniform ran in shrieking, a sickle raised over his head. The uniform reminded Gary of Max; he wavered, then bowled the corpse over with a burst to the face, wondering if his brother might soon require the same treatment…

A heavy ‘thwok’ sounded from the front of the van; Gary saw a leather clad punk knocked backward and to the left. He landed on his side, the left wheel grinding him under. What might’ve been beetles puffed from his wide-open jaws.

A black female corpse rushed in at the driver’s side door, snatching at the handle. Gary squeezed his trigger. Her hand vanished in a cloud of bone-fragments and putrid dust which whipped back into his face. Swearing, spitting, he fell back from the window, pawing at his mouth, trying not to retch at the taste. Legs suddenly weak, he crouched, stomach heaving, and leaned against the side of the van.

On the other side, Steve was firing burst after burst; battling to control his nausea, knowing he had to stay at his post too, to hold his end up. Gary started to rise-then heard a tremendous clang next to his ear. Turning, he saw the blade of an ax protruding through the van’s metal flank. Three inches to the right, and it would’ve split his skull.

He could hear something dragging along outside. He stood, popping the clip from his gun and inserting another, he looked down from the window to see a blonde teen-aged girl, braces gleaming on her bared teeth, clinging with both hands to the ax handle.

Gary stepped back, kicked his heel powerfully into the ax blade. That was enough to dislodge it. Looking back out the window, he saw the dead girl vanish behind them.

“Through,” Steve panted.

It was true. They’d run the gauntlet. The corpses faded into a pall of drifting smoke.

“Why aren’t they using guns?” Steve asked, reloading.

“Maybe guns aren’t personal enough,” Linda said.

“You mean sadistic enough?” Gary asked, looking ahead.

They rounded a bend in the road flanked by the brick walls of burnt-out fisheries. The bridge came in sight.

It was up.

And the approach was blocked by a solid cordon of the living dead.

“I told you!” Gary screamed.

“Route 88,” Buddy said. “We’ll head for 88…”

“And if that bridge is up?” Steve shouted.