Empire (16 page)

    "Addison?" Palmer sat up, looking at Wheeler through half-closed slits. Voorhees pressed an oily rag to the gash on her head. "You mean from the house in the swamp?"

    "Yes! I'm tellin' you, Addison sent them out here! He wants bodies for his fuckin' research! I know what I'm talking about!"

    "You want to talk about it without screaming?" Jenna said. Wheeler was ready with a smug retort. "The nice officer here says all the rotters are having dinner next door. What're you worried about?"

    "Shut up, Wheeler." Palmer got to her feet and took the rag from Voorhees with an appreciative glance. "We just need to keep quiet until they're either dead or gone."

    "I won't keep quiet!" Wheeler hurled the wrench across the room with an ungodly clatter. Mike wrestled the bum's arms behind his back and produced his handcuffs. "Oh no you don't!" Wheeler hollered. "You've got no right! No right!"

    Palmer picked up the wrench. Wheeler's eyes met hers and he yelped as she came at him.

    The window in the door exploded, peppering Mike and Wheeler with glass. The axe head swept through, only to get caught on the edge of the shelf; holding it was the skull-faced rotter.

    "We saw him!" Lauren cried as Jenna pulled on her. "We saw him, remember?"

    "Get into the pit!" Voorhees gestured to the dark workspace beneath the van. Breaking away from Mike, Wheeler pushed past the others to crawl under the vehicle.

    Sawbones freed his axe and attacked the door with renewed vigor.

    "I'm out of ammo." Voorhees told his fellow P.O. "No gun." Mike replied. Someone tapped his shoulder; it was Palmer, and she handed him the wrench. "Just split his damn head open so he can't see straight."

    "Easier said than done." Mike murmured. The reverend slipped down into the pit, leaving them alone. Then the shelf fell over.

    The door swung inward, and the rotter entered to face the two policemen.

    Voorhees grabbed a length of pipe by his feet. In the pit, Kipp screamed. It didn't matter, the rotter already knew where they were.

    Sawbones ran at Mike. The cop ducked aside and the axe buried itself in the side door of the van. Sawbones tugged frantically; Voorhees smashed his pipe against the exposed backside of the zombie's head.

    Sawbones turned and snorted. He jerked the axe free and delivered it to Voorhees' gut.

    "No." Mike could only stare in disbelief as his mentor doubled over.

    But it was the blunt side of the axe head that had struck Voorhees; he rose and hit Sawbones square in the chest with a THWACK!

    It made no difference to the rotter. He lifted the axe again, this time for the kill.

    Mike bashed him in the side of his head. The dog's-skull mask cracked. The wrench cracked again across his face and Sawbones careened into the far wall.

    Voorhees was on it. No sooner had Sawbones bounced off the wall than the pipe came down to blow out his knee. The rotter slumped against the axe handle for support; Voorhees kicked it from his hands. He hit Sawbones in the head. The fractures already present in the skull webbed out, and bits of bone fell to the floor. The cop followed up with his bare fist.

    Seizing Sawbones from behind, Mike hurled him facefirst into the wall. The snout of the dog's-skull ruptured like cheap plaster. Dust filled the undead's eyes; he thrashed blindly, but his clawing hands found no purchase.

    Bright red fire spewed from a road flare in Mike's hand, and he crammed it into Sawbones' eye socket. The skull lit up like a hellish jack-o'-lantern. Sawbones mewled and dug his rotten hands into his mask to get the fire out.

    With a roar, Voorhees lifted the fallen shelf and threw it onto the monster.

    Mike leapt atop the shelf before Sawbones could buck it off. Taking up the axe, Voorhees held it over the thing's kicking feet. "Hold still, Mike. I don't want to get you."

    "I'm doing my goddamndest."

    Voorhees slammed the axe through Sawbones' left heel, then his right. Ichor pooled around the severed extremities, now attached only by a few stringy bits.

    "Everybody out here quick!!" He yelled. The others obeyed, each gazing in horror at the squirming zombie as they passed it.

    Mike wriggled off of the shelf and left Sawbones to paw at the floor.

    Running to the door, Voorhees peered outside. "It's clear--"

    "Wait."

    Mike narrowed his eyes. "Is that a bite?"

    Wendy clutched Kipp to her breast, heart pounding.

    But he wasn't looking at the boy.

    Wheeler followed Mike's gaze to his hand and snatched it into the sleeve of his coat, looking at the others. "What. What."

    Barring the doorway, Voorhees' cold stare bored holes into the back of Wheeler's head.

    The others stepped away.

    "It - what, this?" Wheeler held his hand out now, shaking it at them as if offended. "The kid did it, down in the pit! He was scared!"

    No one spoke. The pit had been dark and horrifying; with the fight going on overhead, everyone was in a stark panic. Reverend Palmer looked at Kipp. Maybe the child really had bitten him. "Kipp?" She asked. Wendy shook her head quickly. "No, no, we weren't anywhere near him--"

    "Then who the fuck did it?!" Wheeler snapped. "Because it happened down there, and if it wasn't that retard I don't know who it was!"

    The wrench smashed into his brainpan with a solid THUNK; strands of bloody hair came away on the tool, then it struck Wheeler again, this time with a wet sound, and he fell, gibbering.

    Voorhees knelt over him and brought the wrench down one last time.

    Wendy smothered Kipp against her. The others just stared. Blood pooled rapidly around the bum's dashed skull, nudging them further back.

    Mike stooped on the other side of the body, opposite Voorhees, and took the wrench away. He turned Wheeler's hand over and examined the bite. It had broken the skin, barely, and if it was a rotter's, then Wheeler had likely been infected.

    "Come here." He motioned to Wendy. She shook her head again, so he went to her. Tears coursed down Wendy's face and fell onto his hands, which lay on Kipp's shoulders. "I just want to see his mouth." Mike assured her. Knowing the P.O.'s politeness wouldn't last if she refused, Wendy slowly turned Kipp to face him. He touched the boy's mouth, parted his lips, examined his teeth, sighed.

    "I think he was telling the truth."

    There were a couple of short gasps. Voorhees was frozen beside the corpse. Beneath the shelf, Sawbones grunted.

    Voorhees coughed into his fist and stood up. "We've got to keep moving." What Wheeler had said minutes earlier.

    Mike began to ask, "Should we burn--"

    "There's no time." Voorhees answered, and walked out the door.

    So they left.

    The afterdead made their way out of the shelter as the roof caved in, forming a maw with a thousand fiery tongues that belched smoke into the sky.

    Aidan held his blackened fingers out in front of him and counted his siblings. They were three short. Three still inside, including Harry (but not Sawbones, as he'd fled earlier), and all of them were probably now covered in flames as Harry had been. There was some formality that Tetch had taught them to observe in such an instance, but Aidan had forgotten it. He searched the streets for Sawbones.

    The man in black climbed down from his white horse and drew a scythe from his robes. Aidan's corrupt innards roiled at the sight of him.

    Uriel had retrieved the rifle and loaded fresh rounds into it with his cracked, charred hands. He took aim at the man in black and fired.

    The man flew back, struck the curb, folded over like a doll and lay still.

    His flesh would not be tinged with smoke. It was white and unblemished and Uriel's mouth watered as he shuffled forward, leading the pack.

    Death stayed in the prone position and listened for their approach. The rifle hadn't left a scratch on him. He needn't have even reacted to the impact except to draw the rotters in. And now...

    NOW

    He rose, robes billowing out as he swept the scythe in a broad arc, black eyes rolling over white and reflecting nothing in their depths. The setting sun played brilliantly across the blade as it glided toward Uriel, halving the barrel of the rifle, halving the zombie's torso, sending a geyser of brown filth spraying from dead arteries.

    Uriel slumped into Prudence's arms. She dropped him and came at the man in black. He turned the blade flat and hit her across the face with a clap that shattered bone.

    Sweeping his cloak around his back, Death swung the scythe under his arm like a pendulum. One of the rotters had circled behind him; its groin was skewered and the filleted remains emerged from its backside, on the bloody tip of the Reaper's blade.

    Death gripped the scythe's handle with both hands and hurled the impaled rotter into the others. They fell in a heap of tangled, thrashing limbs.

    Aidan struggled to his feet and reached into his suit jacket for his knife, taken from the butcher block in the manor kitchen. Its size was pitiful in comparison to the other's blade, but the other wouldn't be able to kill him. Shouldn't...

    Peering over Death's shoulder, Aidan saw that Uriel was still motionless in the road. He frowned.

    The scythe pierced him beneath the chin and parted his tongue on its way through his mouth; he felt foul liquids erupting inside his head, felt his limbs go numb as his brain was speared, and then nothing as Death lifted Aidan off the asphalt and dangled him before the others.

    The white-eyed spectre glowered at them, at their senseless gaping faces. He jerked the scythe free.

    "Come. Come at me."