Mark Rogers - The Dead

Even so, he was in Max’s world now. The pathetic world of flesh.

“Go for it,” Max said.

Legion charged. As far as he was from Max, he almost reached him.

Max’s first burst knocked him back on his heels, bullet holes stitching across the trooper uniform. A second blew his eye sockets empty, punched his nose in, ripped jaw from cheek and cheek from brow, pulverized his skull in a brownish-black eruption.

The decapitated giant staggered on his feet, hands reaching up toward his severed neck. Laughing fiercely, Max sprayed him across the elbows. Cloth exploded. Bone-splinters flew. The giant’s arms flopped downward, all but severed.

Max lowered the gun, scythed through Legion’s knees with a final clip-emptying burst. The torso dropped to the catwalk with a great clang.

Max pulled himself to his feet, leaning on the railing, eyeing what was left of the demon-possessed corpse.

“You were right about the machete,” he panted, tossing the rifle onto Legion’s body. “But what about old Heckler and Koch?”

Those Kraut engineers certainly knew their stuff. The gun had stuck it out right to the end. The end of the world and beyond. Perhaps, Max thought, the physical universe was capable of accommodating far more of the Logos than Legion would ever admit.

But indeed, hadn’t that been the demon’s error from the beginning? Max wondered what Legion had made of the Incarnation. It was strange, seeing a parallel between the Word Made Flesh and an assault rifle. Yet was not God’s symbol a blood-drenched cross?

Legion’s corpse was still moving, heaving and buckling, thighs drumming. The hands clawed at the patterned surface of the catwalk, straining to wrench the forearms free of the scraps of cloth and flesh tethering them to the body.

Flies began pouring from the bulletholes in the chest, from the stumps of limbs and neck. They formed a cloud, a cyclonic mass, and from that black tornado there came a wailing chorus, hundreds, thousands of tiny whistling voices; spinning violently, the cloud lifted high into the air, the voices fading with distance. The tornado accelerated almost instantly to an incredible speed, assumed for an eyeblink the shape of a spiked wheel-and vanished.

The corpse had gone motionless. Max looked past it to his father. Max Sr. had hitched himself against an upright; they stared at each other quietly. Max yearned to go to him, to try somehow to comfort him.

Yet even if his leg would’ve permitted, that was insane. It would be like embracing a wounded cobra. A great gulf had come between them.

But was it unbridgeable? Was his father damned eternally? His father’s will was still free, if just barely. And if that were not sufficient, was there not enough blood shed at Calvary to cleanse the sins from one man’s small soul?

There was no way of knowing. Can’t second-guess The Man, Max thought. Still he sent his prayer across the gulf:

Dominus Vobiscum, Dad.

As if stunned by Legion’s downfall, the other corpses hadn’t ventured out onto the catwalk. Now they moved to the attack at last.

This is it, Max thought. You’ve bought all the time you’re going to .

“All right, God,” he muttered. “Now I’ve really done my bit.”

Feet clanged on metal, beating nearer and nearer.

“Put myself on the line, God,” he said. “Time to leave, right?”

But they were clattering past his father now, and the hand of God was nowhere in sight. Panic flooded through Max. He’d done the best he could, kept the faith, run the course to its end. Was that not enough?

“Fair is fair, Lord,” he said. Could it be that he’d beaten Legion only to die at the hands of his followers? What was the meaning of the crucifix that had saved him? Was that God’s work or not?

Curse Him and die, whispered a voice in his head.

Legion’s voice.

The first corpse lunged close. Max knocked one of its clutching hands aside and punched it. The cadaver toppled. If only he hadn’t tossed the rifle away-it would’ve made a good club.

Curse Him and die, said the demon in his soul.

Another corpse leaped over the first, sank its fingers into his arm, threw him onto the catwalk. They surged over him, pinning him down.

Curse Him and die.

“I believe in one God,” Max gasped.

Jaws locked onto his legs, his arms, sheared through fingers.

“The Father, the Almighty…”

One of his ears was wrenched from his head.

“Maker of Heaven and Earth…”

You’re all mine now.

The Nicene Creed died in his throat as a brace of filed teeth shut on his Adam’s Apple.

Gary’s group was some distance from the bridge, out of the marina, when Father Chuck’s leg gave way again. Gary knew he’d have to stop the bleeding, and they paused long enough for him to tie his own belt around the priest’s limb. The blood flow slackened, but wasn’t choked off altogether; scarlet still marked Father Chuck’s steps.

They threaded in and out among the bungalows, working north-northeast. Father Chuck collapsed a third time. It took an ammonia capsule to rouse him.

Gary and Linda searched each other’s faces. It was hopeless, and they knew it. The priest was a weight around their necks. He was death.

Yet to abandon him was damnation.

“Maybe he’ll be our ticket out,” Linda said.

Gary laughed as he shouldered the priest’s weight once more. “They should make these tickets lighter,” he said, pushing on.

He became aware that the gunfire had stopped. Now there were only the screams of the dead, growing steadily louder.

Did you get out, Max? Gary wondered.

“Blood’ll lead ‘em right to us,” Linda gasped.

“It’s God or nothing,” Gary said.

But the sky didn’t open to receive them, and Father Chuck’s legs turned almost to rubber. Gary fell beneath him, panting furiously.

“Father?” he gasped, wrestling out from underneath. “Can you make us a miracle?”

The priest raised himself on his hands and knees. He lifted his head, tried to point, but toppled. “Church… St. Bonaventure’s.”

Gary looked; the steeples were near.

“Body… of Christ… miracle enough?” the priest asked.

Gary dragged Father Chuck once more to his feet. Linda set her shoulder under the priest’s other arm, and they trudged forward.

They had only a hundred yards to go, but it was pure torment, a nightmare of exhaustion and cramping muscles. Yet finally, with the screams drawing ever closer, they came out on the street fronting the church, and staggered across to the steps. With a terrific effort, they got Father Chuck to the top; blessedly, the great oaken doors were unlocked, and the three dragged inside. To all appearances, for whatever reason, the church hadn’t been desecrated-yet. Gary locked the doors behind them, and they went up the main aisle toward the altar. Father Chuck collapsed over the step by the rail. Gary snapped another ammonia capsule under his nose. The priest grunted, shaking his head.

“Don’t die on us now, Father,” Gary pleaded.

“Altar,” Father Chuck muttered. “Tabernacle on altar. Get the sacrament…”

Linda staggered to the altar, opened the tabernacle. The chalice inside was empty.

“It’s not there!” she cried, turning with the vessel in her hand.

“Must’ve removed it,” Father Chuck said. “To keep it from them…” He pointed to a nearby door. “Container in there, probably… full of hosts. Unconsecrated.”

Linda and Gary rushed through. In an almost comically prosaic cardboard barrel lined with plastic, they found the wafers. Shoveling a handful into the chalice, they returned to Father Chuck, setting the cup down on the scarlet carpet.