“Cory.” John looked like he’d swallowed rotten meat. “We don’t know if she’s alive or not. Or one of those things. But our best bet for saving her is to use our brains and not just rush into things. What if Todd really does have the answer?”
Cory felt like he was being torn apart. He knew what he wanted to do but also what made more sense.
“I don’t know...”
“I trust Todd. Do you?”
Although John didn’t say he was planning on going to Todd’s, Cory understood it. Understood it meant if he wanted to go after Marisol, he’d be doing it alone.
Goddammit!
There was no avoiding it. “All right. We’ll go to the church. But we can’t dick around all day. We need to move fast, before it’s too late.”
On the way to the car, Cory said a quick prayer.
Hang in there Marisol. We’re coming.
Please don’t be dead.
When they arrived at the church, Todd was waiting at the front door. The day was turning out to be one of the hottest in weeks and Todd’s sweating face, combined with his pale skin and the dark circles under his eyes, made him look feverishly ill.
They followed him into his father’s office. The old desk had been pushed to one side and a section of mildewed wall paneling pried off, revealing what appeared to be a hidden storage area. All the papers and books that had previously been on the desk were now on the floor, replaced by new stacks of books and papers that looked just as old and rotten.
“What the hell is all this?” Cory asked. “How did you find it?”
“My—” Todd paused, grimaced, then continued. “I fell asleep earlier. After my mother...passed. And I had a dream.”
“Jesus, Todd. I’m sorry. Is there—”
“No.” Todd cut Cory off. “I’ll take care of things later. It’s the dream that’s important. I remembered something in it, something my mother once said about my father having a special hiding place in his office.”
Although it wasn’t obvious, there was something about Todd - his expression, his body language - that told Cory he was lying. A veteran of many court rooms, Cory trusted his instincts but couldn’t figure out what part of Todd’s story wasn’t true. Not that it mattered. What did matter was what he’d found.
“What is this stuff?”
“My father knew how to get rid the Shades. Apparently, my family has a long history of dealing with them.”
“All our families do,” John said. He quickly filled Todd in on what Freddy Alou had told them.
“Interesting.”
“Forget interesting.” Cory felt like shaking them both. “How do we kill them?”
Todd shook his head. “We don’t. There are far too many of them.”
“You said you had the answer!” Cory practically shouted.
“I do. Right here.” Todd picked up one of the books from the desk. “We don’t kill them. We send them on to where they need to be.”
Cory thought his head might explode. Some of his frustration must have shown on his face, because Todd took a step back and John placed a hand on his arm. “Easy. Let him explain.”
“We don’t have time for explanations. They’ve got Marisol. Every minute we stand here talking is a minute wasted.”
John started to say something else but Todd stopped him.
“It’s all right. I can explain while we walk.”
“Walk where?”
“To the old burial ground. You had the right idea but the wrong tools. Luckily, my father left us everything we need.” Todd lifted up a canvas bag from next to the desk.
“Let’s go.”
“The information you found in our research held part of the answer but not everything.” Todd was speaking rapidly as they walked through the woods to Wood Hill Sanitarium. “Killing the zombies just releases the Shade inhabiting it, enabling it to possess someone else. Using Holy water on a Shade destroys it but there are probably hundreds of them by now, far too many for us to handle. What we need to do is cleanse the ground where the Shades have been living.”
“Freddy said that burying them would trap them, just like you did the last time.”
“He was wrong,” Todd said to John. “I got lucky. The Holy water in the firecracker...it acted like a shotgun. Killed a lot of them. But there weren’t as many back then. They’re too strong now. We have to rid the area of all corruptive energy once and for all. A total cleansing.”
“Can we do it?”
“My father believed so.”
“So how come no one ever tried it before?”
Todd shrugged. “They thought what they’d done had worked. My father had intended to do this but after I...well, things went back to normal after what I did, so he waited to see if they returned. Then he died.”
“And that’s all there is to it?” Cory asked. “Just bless the ground?”
“No. We’ll have to kill some of them. And we’ll need to remain positive in our thinking, trust in ourselves. That’s just as important as Holy water or blessings. The idea is to counter-act the negative energies, not let our fear get the better of us.”
“Easier said than done,” John muttered. His words put a frightening thought in Cory’s mind.
John’s already the most negative person we know. Does that mean he’ll be the first of us to get taken over? And what about Marisol? She was normally pretty positive about life but she had to be terrified. Would that make her more susceptible to being possessed?
On the heels of that came another thought, one he’d been avoiding ever since the attack at Marisol’s house.
Will I be strong enough to kill her if she’s already one of them?
Chapter 8
Marisol woke to the sound of her ex-husband’s voice.
“You...look...good enough...to eat.”
Opening her eyes, she fought to control the scream that wanted to burst from her mouth. In the pale light coming from an unknown source, she saw her ex-husband’s slack, dead face leering down at her.
Oh god. The attack in the kitchen. It was real. She remembered some of it, right up to the point where something very hard had hit the back of her head. But she’d been sure she’d hallucinated seeing Jack and Mayor Dawes bursting through the glass doors.
“Not...eat...wife.”
He knows who I am. But there was something wrong with Jack’s voice. The way he was speaking. As if...
As if his brain was dying more slowly than his body. Was that how it happened? Was that why some could talk and others couldn’t?
Jack leaned closer, bringing the foul stench of death to her nose. His cold, lifeless hand gripped her jaw. She tried to resist but he stuck fingers in her mouth. She bit down and the rancid taste of blood and rotten meat washed over her tongue, making her gag. That allowed him to slip his whole hand in and pry her jaw open.
Something moved in the darkness next to him and she realized what was happening.
He wanted to make her into one of them.
This time, the scream burst out with the force of a runaway train. Long and loud, it didn’t stop until she ran out of air.
By then the entity was moving towards her, a twisting ribbon of charcoal gray that radiated arctic cold.
Marisol did the only thing she could think of.
She closed her mouth as hard as she could, her teeth cutting through flesh and bone. At the same time, she kicked out with both feet, catching Jack in the groin.
Although he made no sound, Jack tumbled to the side from the force of her kick. Marisol spat out the two fingers she’d bitten off and got to her feet just as Jack sat up. She kicked him again, catching him right under the jaw.
There was a loud crack! and he fell over.
With his head hanging at an unnatural angle.
Marisol turned and started running. She had no idea where she was but it didn’t matter. She just had to get away. She’d only taken six or seven steps when more zombies emerged from another room.
Marisol cr
ied out and swung her fists as the walking corpses grabbed her. She tried kicking them. None of it did any good. Then, in the midst of her terror, she remembered what Cory had said about the Shades.
“Let go of fear and think positive thoughts. Visualize a holy light around you, a light that denies access to your person by evil beings.”
Could she do it? Everything in her said fight. Except her fear would only make the monsters stronger. It came down to trust. She had to trust Cory. He had believed those words he’d read.
She closed her eyes and tried to think of positive things, good things. Cory’s face appeared, and she pictured him holding her, his arms protecting her from all dangers. She imagined a circle of light around them, like a force field from a science fiction story. In her mind, Cory was telling her how much he loved her and she laughed and said she loved him too. He stroked a finger across her chin and kissed her. Inside their circle, everything was perfect.
Safe.
In the real world, cold, dead hands gripped her jaw.
Even though the lights were off and the corridors filled with abandoned furniture and papers, Wood Hill was still as familiar to Todd as the hallways of his own house.
The stagnant air smelled of mildew and dust but beneath that, Todd still caught whiffs of more familiar odors. Pine-scented cleaner. The heavy cologne the Haitian orderlies had favored. The scent of baking cookies emanating from the kitchen. Or maybe those were just memories, so strong they’d taken physical form.
They’d arrived prepared to break into the building, either through a door or window, only to find the back entrance already open. A way for the zombies to get in and out? Vandals looking for drugs? Either way, it put them on guard to possible danger. Todd still wasn’t sure what to do if that danger actually presented itself. They were armed for both supernatural and physical threats - Holy water for the Shades and tire irons for the zombies - but the whole concept of fighting went against the strategy of not emitting any negative energy.
Yet they couldn’t stand motionless and let themselves get possessed or eaten.
We’ll work it out if and when it becomes necessary, Todd had thought, as he stepped through the door.
So far, it hadn’t been necessary.
They’d gone half the length of the building without seeing or hearing anything. By the time they reached the staircase that would bring them to the sub-basement, Todd was beginning to feel some confidence returning. The open door had most likely been from vandals. They might even actually make it all the way to the burial pit without problems.
“Are you sure this is the right staircase?” Cory asked, his whispered words unnaturally loud in the silence of the empty building. Below them, the staircase wound down into total blackness.
“Yes. It’s three floors down to the engineering level. From there we’ll have to search for the tunnels but they shouldn’t be hard to find. I imagine all the police tape is still up.”
“Okay. Are we ready?” Cory looked at Todd and John.
A woman’s scream answered them from somewhere down in the darkness.
* * *
Cory’s cry of “Marisol!” was still echoing in the stairwell as he pushed past John and Todd and bounded down the stairs. Shouting for him to wait, they followed, the pounding of their shoes on the stairs combining with his to create artificial thunder so loud it hurt his ears. The stairs vibrated underneath their feet and the jerking, strobe-like beams of their flashlights turned the staircase into a surprise carnival ride.
Cory knew he was letting his emotions overrule good sense but he didn’t slow down. Although he’d desperately wanted to find Marisol alive, he’d also had his doubts. Why would the zombies or Shades treat her different from all the other people they’d killed? In his mind, he’d half-accepted it was too late.
But when he’d heard her scream, it meant that not only was she still alive, she was in trouble. You didn’t scream like that unless things were desperate.
He took the stairs two at a time, bouncing off the walls and railing, barely in control of his descent. At the bottom, he hit the metal door with his hip and shoulder and burst into another dark cavern.
Only then did he stop.
“Todd, which way?” he shouted, as the other two joined him.
“Hang on.” They cast their flashlights around, exposing glimpses of green and silver-colored pipes, giant-sized machinery and control panels covered in dust and grime. The room extended as far as their lights could penetrate in both directions, with no hint of how much further they went.
Todd pulled a compass out of his pocket and shined his light on it. “That way.” He pointed to their left.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. The old building lays to the west. It—”
Cory didn’t wait to hear the rest. He took off at a fast walk, the best he could do with the only the flashlight to see by. As much as he wanted to sprint down the corridor, hitting his head on a pipe or falling into an unseen hole wasn’t going to help him rescue Marisol. Random images stuck in his mind as he kept an eye on his footing. Rusty pipes as big around as his waist running parallel and vertical in the wide expanse. Sluice grates on the floor, indicating the presence of sewer drains beneath them. Chains hung in a seemingly random fashion, the action of his light giving them the illusion of movement.
Wait, they really are moving—
The zombie barreled into him like a runaway bulldozer, its shoulder striking him in the ribs and knocking him to the cement. His breath exploded from his lungs and his flashlight and crowbar went skidding across the floor. Doubled over and fighting to breathe, Cory tried to roll away from his attacker. Hands gripped him and he prepared himself for the bite that was sure to follow. Then lights appeared and someone shouted. A second later, John and Todd joined the fight, driving the zombie away with their weapons.
Cory got to his knees, sucking in air and trying to clear his head. In the strobing flickers from the flashlights, he saw more zombies emerging from the darkness.
“Look out!” he wheezed, using the little breath he’d regained. Forcing himself to his feet, he staggered forward, gaining strength and balance with each step. He paused just long enough to grab his flashlight and then smashed it into the face of a zombie that was about to bite Todd’s neck. The blow forced it back a step, allowing Todd to slip away. The monster staggered towards Cory, who removed a long knife from his backpack and stabbed the corpse in the neck. The triangular blade slid through skin and muscle like it was cutting bread. Using a sawing motion, Cory worked the blade to the side, parting flesh and tendons until the head fell back, half-separated from the neck.
The zombie fell to the floor and Cory turned his attention to the macabre scene surrounding him. Bodies turned and twisted, caught in random flashes of light. Voices shouted, letting him know John and Todd were still fighting, but he had no way of discerning between his friends and their dead attackers.
Suddenly a blinding beam filled the room, causing Cory to cover his eyes. The light moved closer and then past him, revealing a single man carrying two industrial-sized lamps, like the ones often mounted on police cars.
“Chief Travers?” Cory asked, recognizing the man’s silhouette.
“Thought you might need some help. Been keeping my eye on you, followed you down here.” Travers handed Cory a pistol. “Can you use that?”
“With pleasure.” He turned towards the fight. “John! Todd! Hit the deck!”
Two figures abruptly fell to the floor and Cory aimed at one of the standing shapes. He pulled the trigger and the figure’s head jerked to one side, its shape no longer oval but something more like a broken egg.
Next to him, Travers fired and another zombie went down. Then they were both shooting as fast as they could aim, the reports of the two pistols creating a deafening thunder that echoed back and forth off cement and steel until Cory thought his head might explode. Smoke and dust formed three-dimensional shapes in the beams of light, twisting and intert
wining.
It took Cory several moments to realize he’d emptied the gun but was still pulling the trigger. He turned to Chief Travers, saw the man’s mouth move but couldn’t hear him. He shrugged, tapped his ear. Travers nodded and pointed at the ground, and Cory understood they needed to see if Todd and John were okay.
They went to their knees and crawled forward. The fallen bodies of the zombies were extra pale in the spotlights and Cory kept thinking he saw movements. Without warning, a hand lunged at him, grabbed his arm. Cory screamed and slapped it away. A second hand joined it and he took the empty gun and slammed it down, smashing the grip onto the attacking digits. A muffled cry of pain reached him just as he was about to swing the gun again.
“John?” Cory shoved the gun in his pocket and gripped the his friend below the wrists. Pulling with all his might while pushing backwards with his feet, he slid John’s body out from under the two dead zombies that had covered it.
“Are you okay?”
John nodded. “Yeah. Felt like I was gonna suffocate for a minute. Where’s Todd?”
“Over here.” Travers waved to them. “I’ll have him free in a second.”
Once Todd was standing and had reassured them he wasn’t injured, Cory turned to Travers.
“We have to keep going. They’ve got Marisol down here, we heard her a little while ago.”
Travers nodded. “Here.” He handed Cory another clip for the pistol. “Lead the way. I’ll take the rear.”
They didn’t have to go far. Two minutes of walking brought them to an area where the machinery was spaced out more than in the previous sections. In the center of the space two zombies held a struggling Marisol on the ground. Deputy Mayor Jack Smith knelt on her chest, his head at a weird angle. A black, stringy shape hovered in front of her face, smoky tendrils poking at her nose and mouth.
“No!” Cory raised the gun, took aim at Smith’s head. Marisol turned and looked at him, tried to scream. Cory saw some of the tendrils slide between her lips.
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