The Undead

by Stephen Leather

  He pointed after the cruiser pulling away from the kerb. ‘Follow that car,’ he said.

  ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘Just do it!’

  ‘Okay, okay,’ said Laura. She started the engine and gave chase. The cruiser wasn’t using its lights or sirens and traffic was light so she was easily able to keep it in sight. ‘They’re going to the mortuary,’ said Nightingale.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t know, but something has happened.’

  It was just a ten-minute drive to the mortuary, a sprawling three-story colonial with green siding. The sky was darkening as they arrived, and there were thick clouds overhead. There was a parking lot to the side and Laura pulled up next to the cruiser. Rice was on the radio and his jaw dropped when he saw Nightingale get out of the car. Rice climbed out. ‘Who invited you?’ asked the detective. He caught sight of Laura in the driving seat. ‘And what’s she doing here?’

  A uniformed cop got out of the driver’s seat, his hand on his gun. ‘It’s all right Officer Howzer,’ said Rice. He gestured at Nightingale. ‘Mr Nightingale says he knows what’s going on, which is more than I do.’

  Officer Howzer was a short bulky man with a blonde mustache. His uniform seemed one size too small for him. He nodded and took his hand off his gun.

  ‘What’s happening?’ asked Nightingale.

  ‘There’s been a death in the mortuary. No details yet.’

  Laura got out of the car. ‘Is this where they took my friends?’

  ‘Your friends?’ said Rice. ‘Yes. This is where they check for cause of death and store bodies while investigations are on-going.’

  ‘Detective Rice, there’s something you need to know,’ said Nightingale.

  ‘Spit it out, then,’ said Rice.

  Nightingale took a deep breath, then explained about the book and the Wights. He also mentioned something he had forgotten until that moment: as legend had it, when a man was killed by a Wight he would come back as one himself, sometimes immediately, sometimes after a few hours or even days.

  Laura looked at him in amazement. ‘You think my friends have come back to life?’

  ‘Not back to life, no. They’re undead.’

  ‘You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,’ said Rice. ‘Like a fucking zombie? Is that what this is? The walking fucking dead? That’s a joke, right? Some sick attempt at humour?’

  ‘I’m not joking,’ said Nightingale. ‘You don’t believe me, fine. You’ll know soon enough.’

  Howzer and Rice exchanged worried glances. Rice cursed under his breath, then turned back to Nightingale. ‘Now listen, I’m not saying I believe you or that I agree with you, but for argument’s sake let’s just say you are right. How do we kill the damn things if they’re already dead?’

  ‘Fire. Or you can chop off their heads. But shooting them won’t do any good. Because they’re dead already.’

  ‘Bullshit,’ sneered Howzer.

  That was when they heard screams from inside the building.

  ‘Go, go, go!’ said Rice. They ran into the building. Rice and Howzer unholstered their guns. Nightingale found an emergency axe in a glass case. He took off his coat, wrapped it around his fist and punched the glass. Then he grabbed the axe. ‘You should wait outside,’ he told Laura.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I’m coming with you.’

  The screams were louder now, from the other side of the building. Rice flicked his head in that direction and Howzer, trembling, went to find the source. Nightingale followed Rice silently, gripping his axe until his knuckles were blanched white.

  Rounding the corner they saw a naked man with Y-stitching across his torso. His skin was so pale it seemed translucent, purple veins encircling his flesh. His eyes were cloudy and lifeless and he had deep gouges all over his body as if he’d been eaten.

  Laura screamed. ‘That’s Dave!’ she shouted.

  ‘Your friend?’ asked Nightingale.

  Laura nodded fearfully.

  Dave was bent over a woman and punching her in the chest. She was unconscious, but she grunted each time he hit her. Then he opened his mouth, preparing to bite her.

  ‘Hey!’ hollered Rice, raising his gun. The Wight stopped, stared at Rice, and started running towards him. Rice fired four rounds into the Wight’s head, neck and shoulders, but the Wight was unfazed. Rice fired two more rounds before the Wight grabbed his head with both hands and raised him in the air, preparing to snap his neck. Nightingale’s axe came soaring in the air and lodged in the back of the creature’s neck. It paused for a moment and Rice fell gasping to the ground. Nightingale pressed his shoulder against the Wight’s back, heaved against it and wrenched the axe free. Before it could turn around Nightingale swung the blade like a baseball bat and cut deeper into the neck. The Wight groaned. Nightingale pulled it out and swung again, this time cutting through the tendons and bone and severing the head. The body fell on the ground, twitched for a few moments, and went still.

  ‘Holy shit,’ said Rice. ‘They’re real.’

  ‘I told you!’ said Laura.

  ‘You better believe it,’ said Nightingale. ‘Remember, you can’t kill them by shooting them. Burn them or cut off their heads. Your guns are useless. Where’s your backup?’

  ‘They’ll be here any minute.’

  ‘All right. Let’s find Howzer and regroup.’

  Nightingale knelt to check the mortician’s assistant. She was still unconscious and appeared to have a concussion. A quick glance at her bruised stomach revealed several broken ribs.

  Rice was gasping. ‘Is she ok?’

  ‘She’ll hurt for a while, but she’ll be fine.’ Nightingale eyed a broom closet a few paces down the hall. With Rice’s help, he took the woman under her arms and dragged her to it. They opened the closet and set her in. ‘She’ll be safe for now.’

  Several gunshots rang out in the hall. Howzer was screaming.

  ‘Howzer!’ Rice called. ‘Hold on!’

  They ran down the hall towards the mortician’s room. They found Howzer on the ground, his body twisted at an impossible angle. His skull had been caved in. Rice swore aloud. ‘My God,’ he said. ‘They got him! They fucking got him!’

  Something was scraping in the next room. Nightingale opened the door and peered in at a few stainless steel dissecting tables, bloody rags and several knives laid neatly out – scalpels, fishhook-shaped rib knives, thin organ knives, a bone saw and two large cleavers. There was another room leading off from the dissecting area where something was chewing and slurping behind the swing door. Nightingale held up a finger, picked up the two cleavers and handed them to Laura and Rice. Then he motioned forwards and they crept silently to the plastic swing door at the end of the hall, holding their weapons high. Police sirens screeched outside, and blue and red lights flashed intermittently in the room behind them. ‘They’re here,’ whispered Rice.

  ‘No shit,’ whispered Nightingale. ‘How many?’

  ‘Eight men, maybe. Four cars, two from my precinct and two from Salsbury… I hope.’

  ‘I hope that’s enough,’ said Nightingale. ‘You need to warn them that their guns will be useless.’

  Just as Rice reached for his radio, they heard a loud grunt from the next room. Then something began sniffing roughly. Nightingale kicked open the door. Stephanie, nude, was bent over the mortician, his throat ripped out, and sniffing the air. Her pale dead face remained impassive as she growled, hopped to her feet, and charged them. Nightingale went to hit her with the axe but she was quick – much quicker than he’d anticipated – and she head-butted him in the stomach, knocking the wind out of him. The axe clanged to the floor.

  Laura and Rice began hacking at her with their cleavers but she showed no sign of pain. She simply turned, grabbed Rice’s hand as he swung, and snapped his wrist. He cried out and dropped his cleaver. Laura struck Stephanie’s head, getting the cleaver stuck as Stephanie shook her head violently and sank her teeth in Laura’s shoulder. Laura howled and fle
w back against the wall, trying to fight Stephanie off.

  Nightingale stood up and chopped Stephanie’s leg at the knee with the axe, sending her tottering to one side. He brought the axe down on her neck again and again until her head came off. He was breathless and covered in blood. ‘You okay?’ he asked, nodding at Laura’s wound. She was pressing it with her hand.

  ‘Yeah, I think so…’ Her face suddenly turned pale. ‘Wait, will I turn into one of those things?’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘Their bites aren’t infectious, they only reanimate after they’ve been killed.’ Rice was wheezing on the ground, his wrist bent. ‘And you, detective? Are you okay?’

  ‘I’ll be fine,’ said Rice. ‘I just have to learn how to swing a cleaver with my left—’ A barrage of gunshots filled the mortuary. The police had burst in. ‘Wait a second,’ he said. ‘They don’t know, I didn’t warn them!’

  ‘Shit,’ said Nightingale. ‘Call them. Now.’

  As Rice reached for his radio, Nightingale bounded down the corridor, ripped open the door and stepped into the hallway. Gunshots echoed down the hall. Someone was screaming. Then there was a loud crunch and the screaming stopped. Rapid footsteps thumped on the floor above him like children rushing from room to room playing tag. He heard hissing up there, then more gunshots followed by screams. Nightingale slipped, only managing to stay up by pressing the axe handle on the floor like a cane. He looked down and realised the floor was covered in blood.

  Rounding a corner, Nightingale glimpsed the woman he’d saved earlier, but she was no longer a woman. She was bent over a police officer, her face covered in blood, gnawing at the man’s open stomach. Chewing on something wet, she looked slowly up at Nightingale, bared her teeth and lunged at him. Nightingale slammed the axe onto her head and it got stuck. She crashed forward, flailing, the axe embedded in her skull. Nightingale pulled it out with a sickly sucking sound and cut off her head with two violent blows. He stood there breathless, wiping the blood from his face. He didn’t notice the dead officer rising silently behind him until he sank his teeth into Nightingale’s shoulder. Nightingale hit the Wight’s head with the axe until it let go. Then he wheeled around and kicked it in the chest. An arm reached out and he chopped at it.

  There was movement behind him. In the corner of his eye he saw two more Wights running full speed towards him, their jaws snapping like sharks. He cursed and ducked around the Wight in front of him and ran, finding a door leading upstairs. He took the stairs three at a time, hearing the door rip open behind him.

  At the top of the stairs he came face to face with Aaron, tall, nude and pale, huge chunks missing from his body. Aaron’s mouth was a mess of blood and gore, and Nightingale glimpsed two police officers down with their brain matter peppering the floor. Aaron hissed at him and reached out, his fingers curved into talons.

  Nightingale turned a corner and ran down a hall with official portraits covering the walls. He stopped briefly at a room where another police officer was slowly rising to his feet in spite of a gaping wound on his neck. Nightingale kept running. Several Wights were chasing him now. He wheeled around a corner, saw a tiled bathroom and crashed into it, falling over a claw foot tub. He got to his feet and hit the first Wight over the head with the axe, then kicked them out. He slammed the door and locked it. The door shook. They were ramming it. He clutched the axe to his chest and scanned the room. No exits. It was a dead end. There was a window leading outside but he was two stories up. He opened the window and looked out, hoping to see a fire escape, but there wasn’t one. To the left was a drainpipe. He grabbed at it. It was metal, so hopefully it would bear his weight.

  As he tucked his axe into his belt, the door began to splinter inwards.

  * * *

  Rice took his radio away from his mouth. He’d told the back-up not to bother using their guns but their had been no response. Through the walls they could hear screams and furniture smashing. It was total chaos. Grown men were wailing like grief-stricken widows. Wights were growling. Someone in the next room was weeping. A man. They listened to him for a few moments but then a door burst open and the man began to scream. ‘No! Wait! Wait! N—!’

  ‘What do we do?’ asked Laura.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said the detective. ‘Maybe we stay here. Wait for help.’

  ‘What if help doesn’t come?’

  Something grabbed Rice’s leg and he flinched. The mortician sat straight up, his face blue, his jaw hanging loose. His black hair was matted with blood. The mortician hissed at Rice. Rice grabbed the cleaver with his left hand and chopped off the mortician’s arm with two savage blows

  He raised his cleaver again but then a voice shouted ‘Stop!’

  Rice turned to look at the doorway. Earl Haverford was standing there holding a large book. He pointed at Rice. ‘Leave my property alone!’ he shouted.

  Rice stared at him in amazement. The mortician seized his chance and leapt forward, biting at Rice’s throat and ripping it open. Blood spurted and Laura screamed. She rushed to help the detective, slashing at the Wight with her cleaver but two powerful hands grabbed her and picked her up. It was the female Wight that had killed her friends out in the cabin. The other two stood motionless behind Haverford. Laura struggled for a moment but Haverford backhanded her hard across the face and the cleaver fell from her hand.

  Haverford’s face darkened. ‘You dumb bitch,’ he said. ‘You ruined everything. I don’t know how I’m going to clean up this mess, but a sacrifice ought to help.’ He nodded at the Wights. ‘Come on. Bring her to the cellar.’

  * * *

  Nightingale slowly inched his way onto the sloped roof in the dark, his Hush Puppies barely gripping the asphalt shingles. Moving right, he slipped, but he regained his footing by clutching the side again. Mineral granules dislodged from the asphalt and went rolling down the rooftop, dropping thirty feet to the ground below.

  While the Wights surged into the bathroom, growling and hissing, Nightingale slowly crawled up the roof, clutching the side with his left hand and keeping his right palm flat against the shingles for balance. He slipped a few times but he was able to stay on, thanks to his left hand holding most of his weight. In a few moments he reached the top. There were two chimneys. One had a plume of fresh smoke pouring from it. There was an incinerator, he thought. Down in the cellar.

  He could see the lights of the town a few miles away. The moon reflected off the windshields of four police cars down below. On the other side of the roof there was a maple tree with big bushy branches, one of which came close to the roof. He walked across and inspected the branch. Deciding it was sturdy enough, he took two deep breaths and jumped, grabbing it. The limb bowed twenty feet in an arc, then snapped in half. Nightingale fell the remaining ten feet and hit the ground hard. The wind was knocked out of him but as he got to his feet he realised he had been lucky and hadn’t broken any bones. Nor had he impaled himself with the axe in his belt.

  He couldn’t hear anything from the house, aside from muffled thumps as the Wights hurried from room to room, searching for prey. He knew Laura and Rice were still in there. He hoped they were still alive.

  There was a window at the back of the house leading into what looked like a kitchen. Nightingale smashed it and climbed inside, ducking into the pantry. Two Wights immediately raced into the room. The tops of their heads were missing and their brains were exposed, but they didn’t seem to notice. Nightingale watched them from behind the pantry’s shuttered door and held up his axe, ready to strike. The creatures moved about aimlessly, first looking out the window and then picking up cracker tins and pots on the stove and knocking them to the ground for no apparent reason. They stopped and listened. Then one of them picked up a glass decanter and smashed it on the cupboards. Again they stopped and waited. It was as if they were trying to scare Nightingale out into the open.

  As quietly as he could, Nightingale felt around the pantry shelves, running his fingers over jars of preserves and packets of instant
rice. He touched plastic bottles of cleaner and dish soap. Then he found what he was looking for. A can of WD40. He was pretty sure it was flammable. Not a hundred per cent sure, admittedly, but it was better than nothing.

  Snorting like a pig, one of the Wights lumbered towards the pantry. It pressed its face against the slats of the door, making a dark shadow on Nightingale’s chest, and began to sniff. Nightingale gripped the axe tightly. A tongue came out and began licking the inside of the slats, then the Wight growled and seized the door handle. Nightingale stepped back and smashed the axe through the door, into the creature’s head. He struck it twice more, pushing through the door and taking off down the hall just as the other Wight caught on.

  Nightingale heard them running behind him. He took out the can of WD40 he’d found in the pantry, fished in his pocket for his lighter and whirled around. As the Wights reached him, he held the lighter flame over the nozzle, and sprayed. A cloud of fire engulfed them; they went up in flames. For a few moments they screeched like banshees and hurled themselves against the walls, then they shrank down and stopped moving, still burning. Footsteps bounded down the stairs. Nightingale trained the bottle on another Wight and set it on fire. Then he heard it: a loud voice in the cellar was chanting in German. It could only be Haverford.

  Nightingale found a door leading to the cellar. A Wight lurched for him just as he opened it. He extinguished the last of the WD40 on the Wight, setting it on fire and kicking it down the stairs, where it tumbled and fell to the bottom, twitching. The chanting stopped. Nightingale unsheathed the axe from his belt and hurried down the stairs. Laura was tied to a post. Her mouth had been gagged. Earl Haverford stood next to her, holding an old book in one hand and gripping a long curved knife in the other. Three nude Wights stood beside him. ‘Kill him,’ ordered Haverford, and continued reading aloud from the book.

  Nightingale spied the live incinerator against the wall behind Laura and Haverford. Wights were coming down the stairs behind him. Three were advancing from the front. He waited until the last moment, and jumped, soaring over the three Wights and landing heavily on the concrete floor. Haverford’s jaw dropped in surprise and he turned and ran. Nightingale embedded the axe in Haverford’s back and the man screamed in agony. Nightingale let go of the axe, wrenched the book from Haverford’s hand, opened the incinerator door and threw it into the open flames.