Mark Rogers - The Dead

“And I very much resent this notion that priests are actually repositories of magic. I’d reject that kind of power in any case. What am I, a witch doctor?”

“I guess not.”

“Max, he says he doesn’t have any power,” Dennis said.

“Don’t worry about it,” Max answered. “If we can just get him to administer the sacrament-”

“Get me to act contrary to my own beliefs, you mean,” Father Chuck snapped. “Well, you might as well forget it.”

“Maybe we should just hold a gun to your head,” Max said.

“Now hold on, Max,” Dennis protested.

“Just kidding,” Max said, and paused. “You wouldn’t be denying us the sacrament because you don’t like me, would you, Father?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I’m not sure I buy that stuff about standing firm in your convictions. Not after you made such a big deal about going back to help those people, then wimped out yourself.”

Father Chuck spun, eyes burning. “You bastard.”

“Come on, Uncle Dennis,” Max said.

They headed back toward MacAleer.

“Don’t you think that was being pretty rough on him?” Dennis asked.

“Maybe,” Max said. “I’m real tired. And pissed off. I think confession works , you see. Which means he was being a lot rougher on us than I was on him. He’s a son of a bitch.”

He spat.

Max caught some sleep, woke for a stint on watch, and dozed off again after Jamie MacAleer replaced him. Waking once more three hours later, well into the afternoon, he had some food.

“Think we should try to start that Oldsmobile?” Dennis asked.

“What the hell,” Max said, screwing the top back on his canteen. He got to his feet, and they went out to the car.

“Hey,” Jamie called, “When’s someone going to relieve me?”

Max looked over his shoulder at him. The teenager held Max’s Remington, and had it pointed carelessly at him and Dennis.

“Hold your water,” Max replied. “And aim that thing some place else, huh?”

Jamie swung it aside.

“Shouldn’t have given him that gun,” Dennis told Max as they arrived at the Oldsmobile’s driver-side door.

“Nothing to be done about it,” Max said. “Not if I wanted to get some shuteye.”

He opened the door and slid behind the wheel. The keys were in the ignition. He turned them. Nothing at all.

“Want to take a look under the hood?” Dennis asked. “Might be able to fix it.”

“We are in a repair shop, aren’t we?” Max asked, getting back out. He went up to the front of the car; feeling around under the hood for the release, he became aware of a faint but foul odor.

“You smell anything?” Dennis asked, sniffing.

“Yeah.”

“You know, I’d swear it was coming from under the hood,” Dennis said.

“We’ll know in a second,” Max said, locating the catch. Pushing it up, he lifted the hood.

A noxious stench burst over them. They staggered back, gagging. The hood remained locked in the upright position as though the hinges were rusty.

“Whoa,” Max said, and laughed, fanning his hand before his face.

“The engine, Max,” Dennis gasped.

Max squinted at it. The top of the block seethed with what appeared to be some bubbling black substance.

“What is that stuff?” Dennis asked.

“Damned if I know,” Max said.

Now that the hood had been lifted, the smell, which had obviously been collecting for some time, dissipated quickly. Max went closer to the car. The light wasn’t so strong; he still couldn’t tell what the substance was, whether it was some kind of liquid, or even perhaps something alive. He moved closer still, leaned over the radiator, the stench growing in his nostrils…

And realized what the stuff was.

“Worms,” he announced. “Black maggots .”

He’d never seen anything like them. They were thinner than ordinary maggots, with very distinct heads, and formidable looking spiked jaws.

“What are they doing in there?” Dennis asked. “What would worms be doing on the engine of a car?”

“What are they doing alive when it’s so cold in here?” Max asked. He went over to a shelf and returned with a steel yardstick. Pushing it into the maggots, he felt a brief moment of resistance as the stick met the metal beneath the squirming blanket-then the block yielded like termite-riddled wood.

He pulled the stick back out. The end was covered with a tarry smudge of worms. He examined the tip. Some of the maggots were plainly embedded in the thin steel.

He looked back at the engine. A small depression was forming in the top. Worms sank from view, the ravaged metal beneath them collapsing.

Max tossed the yardstick onto the engine. “They’re eating the fucking motor ,” he laughed.

MacAleer came up, revulsion twisting his face when he saw the crawling mass on the engine.

“What is that?” he asked. “Can you clean it off? Get the car started?”

“I don’t think so,” Max said. “Wow.”

“They’re maggots, Mr. MacAleer,” Dennis said.

“Maggots?” MacAleer asked.

Max turned toward him and nodded, grinning mirthlessly.

“Max,” Dennis began, “Do you believe now that God’s pulled the plug on this place?”

Max slammed the hood to block the smell. “Because of a plague of Oldsmobile-eating worms?” He started to say no , then checked himself.

“Absolutely,” he laughed at last. “End of the world, no doubt about it.”

He knew perfectly well that he had no real justification for such a belief, but he could no longer make the effort to resist. He would no longer make it. Steel-eating maggots-it was totally insane. But no more so than a plague of flies, or a river turning to blood. Or the Resurrection of the Dead. MacAleer was right. About the end of the world, at least.

“What’ll we do when the guns break down?” Dennis asked numbly.

“Die,” Max said.

The afternoon drew on toward nightfall; the group readied itself to resume the journey south.

Already prepared, standing just outside the office door, Max eyed the Olds, pondering what he’d seen beneath its hood. Were the worms fully grown, or just an immature form, like true maggots? Would they develop into winged creatures perhaps, swarming forth to lay their eggs on every exposed patch of metal they could find? He could just imagine the results if they managed to work their way into structural beams, the New York skyline collapsing as girders and columns were devoured… Well, he’d always hated New York.

He heard something shifting inside the car; some kind of liquid suddenly splashed down onto the floor under the engine compartment. A sweetish odor reached him, nothing like the smell that had burst from under the hood. But he felt no urge to investigate.

The women and Jamie came out of the office, shouldering their packs.

“We’re ready,” Mrs. MacAleer said.

Dennis was standing watch at the shop’s customer entrance; Father Chuck was stationed once more at the bay-doors.

“All right,” Max said.

Father Chuck withdrew from his post, handing his borrowed shotgun back to Max. Max checked the action, pumping a shell out onto the floor. The mechanism seemed limber enough. He stooped to pick the cartridge up, sliding it back into the trap.

“See anything out there?” he asked Dennis.

“No,” Dennis answered. “Might be something around the corner, though.”

“You want to go look, or should I?”

“I’ll do it,” Dennis said. Opening the door, he went out into the twilight.

Max followed, pausing on the threshold, watching him. Dennis crept along the wall toward the corner of the building, halted, then looked. A second later, he disappeared around the bend.