Congregations of the Dead

by Moore, James A. ; Rutledge, Charles R. ;

  Tammy was still dead. He’d managed a few hours of sleep the night before and he’d been under exactly long enough to dream that the whole thing was some sort of joke. Turned out he was just dreaming. She was still dead and he still felt like shit about it.

  Knowing you’re innocent with your head is not the same as knowing that same truth with your heart. His heart wanted nothing to do with the truth. It preferred to make him suffer for a while.

  Tammy had left town a long time ago, but she was still a native of Wellman and a lot of people still showed up for the funeral. Her dad was there, and Carl had trouble looking at the man for more than a few seconds at a time. The coach had been a vital man once, but now he was withered away, shrunken in on himself, consumed by cancer and grief alike.

  Carl’s dad had a lot of sayings but the one that rang through his head when he looked at his ex-father-in-law was simply that a parent should never outlive a child. The coach had outlived everyone that mattered to him. His wife, two siblings, and now his only child. He deserved better.

  Carl didn’t tell him that. He didn’t begin to know how to approach. Once upon a time the man had been an idol of his, someone he admired. That had been put to rest when Tammy left. Her father had chosen to side with his daughter and never once said a word to Carl. He could forgive that transgression, but he could not forget it. There was simply nothing between them anymore save for a shared sense of loss, and for Carl that wasn’t enough. Not anymore.

  There were other, better people standing beside the old coach. Bob Stack was next to him, one hand resting on the man’s withered shoulder.

  Carl took a deep breath and remembered to exhale. Then he took another breath. If he wasn’t careful he forgot about that part of the equation.

  As Tammy was lowered into the ground a jagged flash of white lit the sky behind the mourners, followed by the first serious peal of thunder. The storm wasn’t going to hold off much longer.

  Movement in the distance. Carl looked toward a group of people heading for the cemetery gates and frowned. There was something not right about them. The way they moved, maybe. Or the way the faint light hit them.

  The rain started in earnest and the people who had remembered to bring umbrellas opened them. Carl had not bothered. He was dressed for a funeral, in civilian clothes, a decent suit he saved for special occasions, the infrequent wedding, the even less frequent funeral. He squinted against the precipitation and looked around for a moment.

  Bob Stack had an umbrella held over the coach’s narrow body. Carl felt himself nod and he looked toward Bob and spoke a thank you with his eyes. Bob nodded back.

  There were a lot of cops there. A lot of deputies, too, but no one would have known. They were not in uniform. They were just faces in the crowd, recognizable only by the way they stood, the way they looked around, same as him.

  The approaching strangers didn’t seem the least bit bothered by the waterworks. They came closer, half a dozen teens, a few adults and, by God, one nun.

  That last made Carl frown. Tammy was a Methodist. Not that it mattered. They could have been there for a different funeral.

  They were closer now; he could see how pale they were. All of them, even the kids. They were pale. Beyond pale. They were bloodless.

  “Shit.”

  Carl looked around, saw Wade and realized the man was looking in the same direction. Good, at least one person was noticing.

  The kids were dressed in their Sunday best. Their mouths were opening, baring the most amazing display of teeth. “Fuck. Fuck me.” He could barely make his mouth open, could barely get the words out. He wasn’t prepared. That was all there was to it. They’d burned the Goddamn vampires down. They were supposed to be gone now. “Wade!”

  And they came on then, moving, dropping lower to the ground, not running so much as pouncing, bounding, leaping over headstones, hurdling the damned things. Impossible motions for impossible dead things that looked like good, God-fearing children. The rain did not obscure their moves from Carl, but damned near everything else was drowned out as the water came down in hard sheets. People were starting to get freaked out by the sudden torrential downpour. They had no idea.

  A girl no older than twelve sank her teeth into Bob Stack’s neck and bit down before Carl could get any closer. Bob barely had time to gasp. The force of the girl striking him drove the police chief to his knees hard enough to let Carl see the impact ripple up his thighs even as he bowed forward. The girl’s hands clutched at his suit, a mockery of a passionate embrace, and blood flowered and trickled across the white of his suit shirt, blossoming into trails of pink in the torrential downpour.

  The coach mourned the loss of his daughter for exactly seven additional seconds before something blurred past and grabbed him. Carl was looking right at the poor old bastard and then he was gone. Despite the cancer, he screamed as he was carried away. Oh, how he screamed.

  Cops and deputies. Not nearly all of the police were there. Nowhere near all of the deputies. There was work to do and they’d recently pissed off a lot of people. There were prisoners being watched, streets being cruised, accidents being handled, the list went on and on. But there were trained police at the scene. They didn’t have their weapons, not a one of them, but they knew how to fight.

  By the time the fourth person had been attacked people were starting to take note. Bob’s wife, Cheryl, tried to peel the girl off her husband. Without even turning the little girl reached back and slapped her hand across Cheryl’s face. Cheryl’s pretty features parted like soft sculpting clay hit by a shovel blade. She fell away screaming.

  The nun stood back and watched dispassionately as the children and other members of Lazarus Cotton’s church stormed forward. And they were members of the church. He could tell that now. That was what had clicked in his head, what had let him know something was wrong. He recognized them, even through his grief. It was hard to forget that many dead people staring at you.

  They’d looked better before Carl and Wade burned them to death. Now they seemed to actually be showing a little more rot, even as they moved into the crowd of mourners, screeching, feeding, killing.

  Carl felt adrenaline kick into his system: Fight or Flight. Carl had been trained to fight.

  Really, there wasn’t much choice in the matter anyway. He was feeling a need for carnage.

  * * *

  They stood at the back of the funeral, four of them all dressed in black and patiently waiting. They were not there to mourn. They were there to watch Carl Price.

  It was best to know your enemy. That was what Mother had always said when she was alive.

  Before Price and Griffin had killed her.

  Gideon Blackbourne held the umbrella over them. The sun was not out, and they were grateful for that. As a unit they were pale. Josias noticed the interlopers first; the scars along the side of his face made it look like he was smiling even when he wasn’t but at that moment a smile touched his features. “This should be interesting.”

  Gideon tensed. Even from a distance he could smell the dead things.

  She held up her hand and waved for silence. “Barak?”

  “Yes?” Barak sidled closer, moving with a grace that most people found unsettling. Even Gideon was unnerved a bit by his cousin.

  “Stand guard. No one gets close to us.”

  Barak nodded and watched the interlopers as they neared.

  “What will we do?” Gideon looked at her and frowned a bit.

  “Nothing yet. Just watch.”

  “Do you still want to pass Price his message?”

  Even as Gideon spoke they heard the Sheriff calling for his friend.

  “No. We wait and we watch.”

  “Is that all?” Josias sounded disappointed. Josias always sounded disappointed when he wasn’t allowed to play.

  Lament did not turn to look at him. She m
erely shook her head. “Perhaps. Perhaps not. We shall see soon enough.”

  No one questioned Lament. No one was that stupid.

  * * *

  A wave of the undead came rolling into the churchyard and for the first time in years Griffin froze. He had been caught flatfooted, out in the open. He had a gun under his coat, but he knew that wouldn’t do any good against the creatures that were sweeping down on him and the others. Lightning flashed and Griffin saw the vampires in stark relief against the dark trees and leaning tombstones. Then he heard Carl call his name and felt the pressure of Charon’s fingers on his arm and the world snapped back into focus.

  Griffin needed a weapon. His machete was in his truck but that was parked at the gates of the cemetery and might as well have been in another state. Griffin glanced around and spotted a shovel near Tammy’s grave. He ran to it and snatched it off the ground. He jammed the blade into the ground, and holding the handle near the end, he brought his foot down on the wooden shaft near where it went into the blade. The handle broke, leaving a suitably jagged end.

  Griffin spun just in time to see one of the vampires bearing down on him. In life the man had probably been chubby but now he looked swollen and bloated. His rubbery lips stretched over his sharp teeth and he hissed like some great serpent as he lunged. Griffin drove the sharp tip of the wooden handle directly into the man’s chest. Griffin knew where the heart was and he was sure he hit it. Didn’t matter. Chubby just kept coming, sliding down the shovel handle. Another movie trick shot to hell.

  Griffin twisted, and using the handle like a fulcrum, he sent Chubby flying past him. The bloated vampire rolled on the ground, struggling to pull the shaft from his chest. As Griffin was turning back to where he had left Charon, long, slender fingers clamped down on his neck. Griffin felt himself being lifted from the ground. The vampire who had him by the throat looked maybe seventeen. A tall, skinny kid in a dark blue suit. Doubtless his Sunday best. His sartorial splendor was spoiled by the dirt ground into the fabric. This close, Griffin could smell the creature. Could see the decomposing flesh. Were vampires supposed to rot? Griffin twisted, trying to free himself, but held in the air as he was, he couldn’t get any leverage. Darkness crawled at the edge of his vision.

  Griffin saw Charon coming up behind the boy. He wanted to warn her away. There was nothing she could do. Lightning flashed again and Griffin saw Charon reach into her small black purse. She came out with a handful of some sort of powder and hurled it at the vampire’s back. As she did so, she said something that sounded like Latin and the powder burst into flame. A second later, the vampire’s suit and hair caught fire and the creature began to howl. Griffin put one foot against the creature’s chest and pushed, freeing his neck from the thing’s grip. Griffin landed in the mud and rolled to his feet. The vampire was screeching and rolling on the ground.

  “Got any more of that stuff?” Griffin said. His voice sounded raspy from almost having his trachea crushed.

  “Not much.”

  “Make it count then.”

  Griffin heard a scream and turned toward the sound. One of the vampires, a husky man with a wild mane of dark brown hair, was descending on a woman who looked vaguely familiar to Griffin. Maybe he had known her in high school. She held out one slender hand as if that would ward the creature off. Husky’s head shot forward and his long sharp teeth closed on the woman’s hand, severing her fingers and starting a fountain of blood. Husky opened his mouth wide, letting the blood spurt between his jaws. His eyes glittered like those of some great feral cat. He caught the woman by her hair and bent her head back. Then he tore out her throat with his teeth, and a second later he tossed her aside and turned toward Griffin.

  “Come on,” Griffin said. “Come on, you ugly bastard.” Husky hurtled at Griffin with incredible speed, arms out-stretched, fingers hooked like talons. Griffin stepped into the charge, caught Husky’s right wrist, jammed his shoulder against Husky’s chest, and pivoted, bending at the waist as he did so. It was about as good a ju-jitsu throw as Griffin had done in some time. Husky’s feet left the ground and he went spinning away to land on top of an ornamental iron railing. For a few seconds Husky writhed and screeched. Then, much to Griffin’s surprise, the vampire began to disintegrate, just as the others had done when decapitated. It took Griffin a moment to realize the vampire had been impaled on one of the decorative spear points that topped the railing.

  “Griffin!” Charon screamed.

  He twisted around just in time to see three more vampires coming their way at a dead run. One of them was the one Griffin had stabbed with the shovel handle. He had managed to pull the shaft free and he didn’t look at all happy.

  * * *

  Carter Decamp was late for the funeral. When he had arrived home, barely an hour earlier, he had checked the dozen or so messages Charon had left him. The last had included the news about the death of Carl Price’s ex-wife, and the funeral arrangements. Decamp didn’t know Price that well, but he respected the man and felt that he owed it to the sheriff to attend the service.

  Rain and a minor fender bender had delayed him. Now as he pulled up to the gates of the churchyard he was suddenly very glad that he had been late. Charon’s messages had included a few bits of information about the possibility of vampires loose in Brennert County. That possibility had become a certainty, and even Decamp, who had seen sights few men could behold and maintain their sanity, was taken aback by the carnage beyond the wrought iron gates.

  Decamp shoved the door open and stepped out into the downpour. He hurried around to the back of his car and opened the trunk. He lifted a long nylon case and tore the zipper open. Inside was a long, straight sword in a carbon scabbard. Decamp whipped the blade clear and dropped the scabbard without a thought. Then he was running through the rain, his long legs carrying him toward the horrible scene.

  Decamp ran through the gate and decapitated the first vampire he reached. The deceptively slender blade had properties that made it almost unbreakable and so sharp that the edge would draw blood at the slightest touch. Decamp cursed as he saw a vampire child, probably less than ten years old, tearing apart a woman who had fallen to the ground. The boy looked up at Carter and hissed, and a second later the child’s head was rolling across the wet grass.

  Decamp was glad that it was still daylight. Even overcast as it was it would slow the vampires down, and with this many of them he needed every advantage he could get. Decamp heard a familiar voice cry “Griffin!” He spotted Charon, about a hundred yards away. Several vampires were closing in on the girl and her boyfriend Wade Griffin. From the look of things Griffin and Charon had actually managed to down a couple of the creatures. Decamp made a mental note to be impressed later, if he was still alive. He started toward the couple, cutting at any vampires that came his way.

  Thunder rumbled and a dark form rose up in front of Decamp. This vampire, clad in a black leather trench coat and a dark suit, seemed to radiate menace. Pure, cold evil. From what Decamp had seen so far, most of the creatures hadn’t long been turned, and in fact, seemed to be showing some signs of decomposition, which could mean any number of things. But this one? This one was old. Old and dark and full of hatred.

  * * *

  Carl dug into his pockets, spilling change and a tin of mints. His fingers closed on his keychain and he pulled the small ring of keys into his fist.

  The first of the vampires to reach him was gray of hair and skin alike and looked like she might be able to open a car door by herself if she tried really, really hard. That she’d just knocked a headstone over without so much as blinking told him otherwise. He could see the broken granite where the base of the stone was still buried in the ground.

  She charged at him with her mouth open and her hands stretched out to grab his body. Carl dodged hard to the left and felt her fingers rip through his jacket. He kept the spin going and slipped in the wet mud next to Tammy’s g
rave.

  He might have made it if the next one hadn’t jumped on him. Carl felt the cold, bony form of a young girl slam into him from the side and gave a yelp as he fell. There was a brief moment of falling, shorter than he would have expected, and then he landed hard on his side. Tammy’s coffin gave a loud drum-like thump as he hit and he felt the wood crack under his elbow.

  The girl that fell with him let out a screech and bit at his face. Carl acted on pure instinct and shoved his hand at her face. Her teeth clamped down on his keys instead of his flesh.

  Carl’s free hand moved more of its own volition than from any conscious thought, and his hooked fingers sought the girl’s eyes. He let out an involuntary sound of disgust as his fingers dug at her eyes and ruptured the cold, gelid masses.

  The sounds the dead girl made were much louder. She reared back, trying to get away from his hand but Carl pressed forward, rolling his body over hers and pushing what little advantage he had.

  Yeah, it looked good on paper. The girl was decomposing. He could smell the rot coming from her as it covered him, and his stomach was seriously thinking about rebelling, might have had he managed to eat anything in the last day. That didn’t stop her from kicking the crap out of him. Her skinny legs pushed into his chest and launched him away from her, slamming his bulk into the side of the grave he was now upright in. She roared and swung wildly and he did his best to avoid getting caught, dancing across the top of Tammy’s coffin. The wood was cracking again under him and he felt the surface splintering under his weight. The girl was blind and screaming in outrage and pain. Carl was screaming in terror. The idea of falling onto Tammy’s dead body, the notion that this dead thing might actually rip into him with that mouthful of teeth – horror coiled around his heart, his insides.

  The hand that hauled him from the grave was not kind. He was pulled from the depths of the hole by a powerful grip. Fingernails tore through the fabric of his jacket a second time and he heard the material rip with a hard purring noise as he was lifted easily into the air.