Mark Rogers - The Dead

Max stopped a few yards into the store, Dennis, Camille, and Father Chuck piling in behind him.

“Gary?” Max called.

Gary clapped his arms around him, Linda and the rest of Gary’s group bringing up the rear. Linda and Camille hugged each other, Camille planting a loud kiss on Linda’s cheek.

“We’d all better get back from the window,” Max said.

They moved farther into the store; all except Dennis, who remained to watch the street.

“Let me guess,” Gary said. “You’re here for dry suits.”

“We’re from the same litter,” Max answered. “Got yours already? “

“Yeah. But you have to tell me how-”

Max cut him off. “First things first. Let us get outfitted, okay?”

“Sure,” Gary said. “Here, take my flashlight.” Fishing it from his coat pocket, he handed it to his brother.

Yet once the newcomers had suited up, Max insisted the group should leave immediately, brushing aside Gary’s pleas to hear what had happened. Gary knew it was wise to get moving, but also sensed Max wasn’t eager to tell the story.

Max had changed. There was something haunted in his eyes. Indeed, Max’s whole presence seemed somehow diminished, shrunken. What had he been through?

They made a quick search of the sporting goods store nearby. There were no guns left, but there was ammo for the Beretta and the assault rifles, as well as two containers of black powder, which Max took to make bombs. He also picked up a machete.

“Force of habit,” he explained cryptically to Gary, not saying how he lost the other.

Farther along, the food store had also been plundered, although many of the shelves remained a third or so full-the looters hadn’t had time to strip the place clean. Unable to find any dried goods, the group stocked up on canned stuff, filled their all but empty canteens with RC Cola-it was the only drink left-and set out once more.

They spent the remainder of the night looking vainly for usable boats, and weaving their way southward among the fine old shingled summer homes on the western shore of the peninsula. As day drew near, they climbed through the window of a sumptuous three story vacation palace, and went down into its cavernous basement. There, in a windowless room, they built a fire on the concrete floor out of charcoal briquettes. Bags and bags of the fuel were piled against the wall.

“Must’ve been planning one hell of a cookout,” Dennis observed.

“Big party town,” Steve answered. “Lots of folks came down here from New York and North Jersey. This was the state attorney general’s summer place.”

“Giovanni?” Gary asked. “The one who was indicted? “

“Yep. Entertained swarms of assholes here all the time.”

“Anyone want to take the first watch?” Max asked.

“Back by the stairs?” Dennis asked.

Max nodded.

“Okay,” Dennis said. Linda gave him her gun as he went.

Max eased himself down against a white-painted brick wall, Gary settling beside him in the semidarkness. Across from them was Father Chuck, lying on the floor near the fire.

Gary hadn’t heard anything from the priest since the groups reunited. Like Max, Father Chuck seemed to have undergone some kind of crisis, but clearly his had been far more profound. Max’s eyes were haunted. The priest’s were hollow. They might have been the eyes of a dead man.

“All right, Max,” Gary said. “I think it’s about time you told me what happened to you guys.”

“Do you really?” Max asked.

“Yeah.”

Max showed him an exhausted, ugly smile. “What would you like to know?”

“Keep your voices down, please,” Camille begged. “Some of us are trying to sleep.”

“Sure,” Gary said, then whispered to his brother: “Why don’t you just tell me everything?”

“I’m not sure I can do it justice,” Max replied.

“Okay, then, something simple. Why do you smell like you’ve been doused in gasoline?”

Max put his hands over his face, as though he were trying to collect his thoughts. He dragged them slowly downward. “Have you seen the word LEGION scrawled all over the place? “

“Yeah.”

“Legion did it to me.”

“So it’s a name?”

Max nodded. “I think I’d better start at the beginning.”

Opening with Uncle Buddy’s desertion, he told of the escape from the corpses near the lake, the bodies in the parking lot, the fight in the garage, and the death of MacAleer’s wife and son. But when he came finally to the incidents in the storm sewer, he tried to beg off, saying he needed sleep. Gary refused to buy it, kept pressing him; he was more than a little appalled when his brother gave in. It was so unlike him…

But Max let it all out, ending with his reunion with Dennis and the others after Legion freed him.

“You know that big boathouse, just before the Matahawking line?” Max asked. “I went in to see what I could find. Heard snoring from one of those big tool cabinets, looked inside. There they were, fast asleep, all three of them. Aunt Camille was sawing the logs…”

Gary was barely listening to him by that time. “But, Max,” he began. “What is Legion? The other ones don’t have those kinds of powers.”

“Tell me about it,” Max said, and laughed. Gary would’ve sworn there was a note of quiet hysteria there.

“He’s a demon ,” Max went on.

“What?”

“A devil. A fallen angel.”

“But, Max-” Gary began in disbelief.

“Jesus, Gary,” Max broke in, “what planet have you been living on the past couple days? He’s a demon in possession of a human corpse. Ever hear of the Gadarene swine? He’s the one-the ones - who sent them over the cliff.” Max laughed again. “He’s been put in charge of the whole goddamn world.”

“He told you that?”

“Not in so many words. But Father Chuck had a chat with one of Legion’s troops down in the sewer-Father Ted. Uncle Dennis told me all about it. Old Teddy tried to talk Chuck into joining him. And in the process, brother mine, he confirmed MacAleer’s craziest theories. Beyond a shadow of a doubt.”

Gary shook his head, unwilling to believe it. To accept it would be sheer insanity. MacAleer had gone mad. Father Chuck had, too, it seemed. And Max looked like he was well on his way…

“This is Hell, Gary,” Max said. “This is the place where the worm dies not.”

“Well, what if it is?” came Steve’s voice from the shadows to their left. “Maybe this is where we belong.”

“Oh, Christ,” Gary said. “Don’t tell me you’re flipping out too.”

“Just hear me out,” Steve answered. “You know damn well I don’t believe in sin. And I don’t believe in punishment. But maybe we’re better off here. Fighting for our lives. Unwilling to repent. Refusing to lick the jackboots of our Fuhrer in Heaven.”

“Rather be a king in Hell, huh? “ Max asked.

“Absolutely.”

“This place already has a king,” Max answered.

“But wait, Steve,” Gary said. “Are you saying you believe all this stuff about Heaven and Hell?”

“No,” Steve answered. “But if it is true, it doesn’t make me respect the power that stuck me here any more. As a matter of fact, it would just strengthen my suspicions. And whether or not God exists, I’m going to go out fighting Him. Spitting right in the fucker’s face. “

Gary felt a rush of heat in his belly. His tired blood almost kindled at Steve’s words. They seemed noble, heroic. The idea of God had become utterly repugnant. Calling Him a cosmic Hitler barely did Him justice. His power had wrenched Max Sr. from the peace of the grave, sent him forth screaming in torment; Divine Providence had ripped the face from Father Ted, throttled young Dave till his face went black, strangled Aunt Lucy, and snapped its jaws shut on Uncle Buddy’s arm-the list was endless, horror after horror.