F. Paul Wilson - The Keep

She had to get him out—just a few feet beyond the threshold would be enough. But first she had to dispose of the hilt, put it somewhere well inside the keep. Then she would try to drag Papa out to safety.

Across the courtyard lay the entrance to the cellar. She could throw the hilt down there. She began running toward the entrance but stopped halfway there. Someone was coming up the steps.

Rasalom!

He seemed to float, rising from the cellar as a huge dead fish might rise from the bottom of a stagnant pond. At the sight of her, his eyes became twin spheres of dark fury, assaulting her, stabbing her. He bared his teeth as he seemed to glide through the mist toward her.

Magda held her ground. Glaeken had said the hilt had the power to counter Rasalom. She felt strong. She could face him.

There was movement behind Rasalom as he approached. Two other figures were emerging from the subcellar, figures with slack, white faces that followed Rasalom as he stalked forward. Magda recognized them: the captain and that awful major. She did not need a closer look to know that they were dead. Glaeken had told her about the walking corpses and she had been half expecting to see them, but that did not keep her blood from running cold at the sight of them. Yet she felt strangely safe.

Rasalom stopped within a dozen feet of her and slowly raised his arms until they were spread put like wings. For a moment, nothing happened. Then Magda noticed stirrings in the fog that blanketed the courtyard and swirled about her knees. All around her, hands rose out of the mist, clutching at the air, followed by heads, and then torsos. Like loathsome fungal growths sprouting from moldy soil, the German soldiers who had occupied the keep were rising from the dead.

Magda saw their ravaged bodies, their torn throats, yet she stood firm. She had the hilt. Glaeken had said the hilt could negate Rasalom's animating power. She believed him. She had to!

The corpses arrayed themselves behind Rasalom and to his right and left. No one moved.

Maybe they're afraid of the hilt! Magda thought, her heart leaping. Maybe they can't get any closer!

Then she noticed a curious rippling in the fog around the corpses' feet. She looked down. Through gaps in the mist she glimpsed scuttling forms, gray and brown. Rats! Revulsion tightened her throat and swept over her skin. Magda began to back away. They were moving toward her, not in a solid front, but in a chaotic scramble of crisscrossing paths and squat, bustling bodies. She could face anything—even the walking dead—anything but rats.

She saw a smile spread over Rasalom's face and knew she was responding just as he had hoped—retreating from his final threat, edging ever closer to the gateway. She tried to stop, to will her legs to be still, but they kept backing her away from the rats.

Dark stone walls closed around her—she was back within the gate arch. Another yard or two and she would be over the threshold ... and Rasalom would be set loose upon the world.

Magda closed her eyes and stopped moving.

This far will I go, she told herself. This far and no farther ... this far and no farther.. . repeating it over and over in her mind—until something brushed her ankle and skittered away. Something small and furry. Another. Then another. She bit her lip to keep from screaming. The hilt wasn't working! The rats were attacking her! They'd be all over her soon.

In a panic, she opened her eyes. Rasalom was closer now, his depthless eyes fixed on her through the misty half-light, his legion of the dead fanned out behind him, and the rats massed before him. He was driving the rats forward, forcing them against her feet and ankles. Magda knew she was going to break and run any second now ... she could feel the overpowering terror welling up inside her, ready to drown and wash away all her resolve ... the hilt isn't protecting me! She started to turn and then stopped. The rats were brushing against her, but they didn't bite or claw her. They made contact and then ran. It was the hilt! Because she held the hilt, Rasalom lost control over the rats as soon as they touched her. Magda took heart and calmed herself.

They can't bite me. They can't touch me for more than an instant. Her greatest horror had been that they might crawl up her legs. Now she knew they could not. She stood firm again.

Rasalom must have sensed this. He scowled and made a motion with his hands.

The corpses again began to move. They parted around him, then rejoined into a near-solid moving wall of dead flesh, scuffling, stumbling forward, crowding up to where she stood, stopping within inches of her. They gaped at her with slack, expressionless faces and glazed, empty eyes. There was no malevolence in their movements, no hatred, no real purpose. They were merely dead flesh. But they were so close! Had they been alive, their breath would have wafted against her face. As it was, a few of them smelled as if they had already begun to putrefy.

She closed her eyes again, fighting the loathing that weakened her knees, hugging the hilt against her.

... this far and no farther. .. this far and no farther ... for Glaeken, for me, for what's left of Papa, for everyone... this far and no farther...

Something heavy and cold slumped against her. She staggered back, crying out in surprise and disgust. The corpses nearest her had begun to go limp and fall against her. Another one slammed into her and she was rocked back again. She twisted to the side and let its slack bulk slip by her. Magda realized what Rasalom was doing—if he couldn't frighten her out of the keep, then he would push her out by hurling the physical bulk of his dead army against her. He was succeeding. There were only inches left to her.

As more corpses pressed forward, Magda made a desperate move. She grasped the gold handle of the hilt firmly with both hands and swung it out in a wide arc, dragging it against the dead flesh of those closest to her.

Bright flashes of light and sizzling noises erupted upon contact with the bodies; wisps of acrid, yellow-white smoke stung her nostrils ... and the corpses—they jerked spasmodically and fell away like marionettes with severed strings. She stepped forward, waving the hilt again, this time in a wider arc, and again the flashes, the sizzle, the sudden limpness.

Even Rasalom retreated a step.

Magda allowed a small, grim smile to touch her lips. Now at least she had breathing room. She had a weapon and she was learning how to use it. She saw Rasalom's gaze shift to her left and looked to see what had caught his attention.

Papa! He had regained consciousness and was on his feet, leaning against the wall of the gateway arch. It sickened Magda to see the thin trickle of blood running down the side of his face—blood from the blow she had struck.

"You!" Rasalom said, pointing to Papa. "Take the talisman from her! She has joined our enemies!"

Magda saw her father shake his head, and her heart leaped with new hope.

No!" Papa's voice was a feeble croak, yet it echoed off the stone walls around them. "I've been watching! If what she holds is truly the source of your power, you do not need me to reclaim it. Take it yourself!"

Magda knew she had never been so proud of her father as at that moment when he stood up to the creature who had tried to plunder his soul. And had come so close to succeeding. She brushed away tears and smiled, taking strength from Papa and giving it back to him.

"Ingrate!" Rasalom hissed, his face contorted with rage. "You've failed me! Very well, then—welcome back your illness! Revel in your pain!"

Papa slumped to his knees with a stifled moan. He held his hands before him, watching them turn white and lock once again into the gnarled deformity that until yesterday had rendered them useless. His spine curved and he crumpled forward with a groan. Slowly, with agony seeping from every pore, his body curled in on itself. When it was over he lay whimpering in a twisted, tortured parody of the fetal position.