Mark Rogers: The Dead

Max had barely finished with Father Chuck’s leg when the shrieking started; one corpse by the sound of it, off to the south.

“Ginger, I bet,” Steve said. “Fucking Ginger.”

They started moving again.

Other shrieks answered from the east-dozens, maybe scores of voices, over by the boardwalk. The group shifted course, working northwestward.

Quickly they came up against the Mobley Canal, a narrow inlet opening the Barragansett to the ocean, forming the border between Brittany and Mobley Beach. Mobley was another bungalow town, its only tall building a Catholic church called St. Bonaventure’s, whose steeples towered over the surrounding rooftops.

The group headed west, paralleling the channel but staying one row of houses back from it, to avoid being spotted from the north.

“Got to hide,” Gary said, even as a new pack began to bay, off to the south.

“Not yet,” Max answered. “Have to get on the other side of the canal, at least. They’ll be all over this area, and they’ll search every one of these cheesebox bungalows.”

“But…”

“There’s a real sewer system over in Mobley. Our only hope is to get underground.”

Howls resounded from behind. Gary looked back along the narrow lane. It extended straight to the beachfront, and he could see a mob pouring in off the boardwalk.

They did the only thing they could-wind a path south and west through the grid of houses, trying to screen their movements.

But the dead to the south soon spotted them. From that point on, with pursuit from two sides, there was no way to keep out of sight…

Pressing northwest again, they suddenly found themselves on Rt. 35, the peninsula’s main street. On the right was the canal drawbridge, its southern approach guarded by three cadavers. The span was raised behind them.

The group dashed to the far side of the highway. Two of the guards started after them.

Gary dropped back. Clapping both hands to his pistol, he kneecapped the corpses. They went down like they’d tripped over a wire, legs jerking out from under.

He rushed to rejoin the others.

The bungalows on the west side of 35 weren’t laid out in a grid, but more haphazardly, divided by curving gravel roads, with a paved street here and there. Once more it became possible for the fugitives to lose themselves, if only briefly. As short as their lead was, Gary nearly missed them.

But the advantage evaporated when the belt on Father Chuck’s leg worked loose. The blood started again, and there was no time to re-tie the tourniquet.

“I say leave him,” Steve snarled. “He’s going to lead them right to us.”

“No,” Max answered.

“Well, suppose I just shoot the fucker?”

“Suppose we just shoot you? ” Linda panted.

“Why don’t you volunteer, Father?” Steve asked as he ran alongside the priest. “Sacrifice yourself. Save us all.”

Father Chuck shook his head, not even looking at him.

“Don’t have the faith, huh?” Steve sneered.

“Why don’t you take off?” Gary demanded.

“And leave all this firepower? Not on your life.”

A chain-link fence appeared. Beyond were the white tanks of the Mobley fuel company, which had supplied diesel and gas to nearby marinas.

Gary shot the lock off a gate. They dashed across a gravel strip and in among the tanks. Behind them, the maze of summer homes echoed with screams.

They came out in a parking lot bordered on the far side by a spur of the inlet; lined with pilings, the channel reached southwestward to the bay. A raised pipeline, surmounted by a narrow catwalk, spanned the channel; the pipeline serviced the pumps and tanks of the Harrison Bay Marina, which was just across the canal. A gasoline truck stood in the lot between the fuel company’s tanks and the pipeline.

“Go on to the catwalk,” Max told the others. “I’m going to try and light off the tanks. Wait for me.”

Gary set his arm beneath Father Chuck’s shoulder, and they took off across the lot.

Max looked back between the fuel-tanks. The dead surged up to the chain-link fence and poured through the open gate.

He unslung his pack and took out one of his black-powder bombs-the weapon, along with a butane lighter, was in a big Ziploc bag. Opening the bag, he jammed the bomb in between the tank on his left and a tangle of pipe, ignited the fuse, and raced away, pack over one arm.

Up ahead Gary was waving to him; they were past the gas-truck now, nearing the pipeline. Max stretched his legs in tremendous strides, sprinting across the lot, praying he’d judged the length of the fuse correctly.

He glanced back. The corpses were already between the tanks.

Flame mushroomed, and there was a loud whoosh -but no explosion. Max cursed, guessing there’d been some weakness in the tape he’d used to seal the bomb.

He dashed around the gas truck, toward the pipeline. The others were waiting for him on the catwalk. He clambered up the fifteen-foot high ladder, paused on the steel platform, turned.

Several of the corpses had been set on fire, and had fallen in the passage between the tanks. The others, perhaps fearing the flames might torch the containers, were retreating-for the moment.

Max eyed his companions. All were panting, plainly near exhaustion. Father Chuck looked half-dead, his skin a translucent grayish-white. The catwalk around him was printed with red heel marks.

“I have another bomb,” Max said. “I’ll try to blow the pipeline. Maybe this one’ll work. Get going.”

“Jesus, Max…” Gary began.

“Go on. I’ll be along.”

Gary nodded. They set off.

Max watched them for a moment. Father Chuck was going to slow them badly, he could tell.

Should’ve left him, he told himself-and instantly shunted the idea aside.

“No,” he growled under his breath, and forced himself to think of the task at hand.

How could he light the bridge off? Taking the bomb out and shouldering his pack once more, he looked over the side of the catwalk, trying to see if the steel was thin enough for the charge to rip through to the pipeline. But the walk alone was an inch and a half thick. And then there was the beam the walk was attached to. The problem was compounded by the fact that there was no way to fix the bomb to the bridge, wedge it in somewhere, so that the span would absorb the full force of the blast.

He went back down the ladder, thinking he might be able to blast through the concrete support enclosing the pipeline between ground and catwalk. Reaching the bottom and giving the support a quick look, he decided it was far too strong.

He looked back at the fuel tanks. Bodies were still burning where he’d set off the first bomb. How much longer would the fires hold the rest?

Off to the left, a torrent of corpses swept out from behind a great diesel tank. They were simply going around.

He knew now there was only one way to stave them off: the tanker truck. At the very least, blasting a sea of flames across the parking lot would canalize them, slow them down. And some hot shrapnel might just go flying into those damn tanks on the far side. Brandishing the bomb, he rushed toward the truck, hoping the very sight of the explosive would give them pause.

They retreated like a wave backwashing from a beach.

“Yeah!” he cried.

But out from their ranks the bone wolves came speeding.

His H and K hung muzzle-down by its strap. Grabbing the barrel, he flipped the gun up from under his shoulder, taking the pistol grip in his right hand.

The bone wolves beat him to the truck. Never slackening his speed, he continued toward them, screaming at the top of his lungs, firing from the hip.