by Ty Drago
Good for you, I thought.
But the Burgermeister frowned. “Why’d they have you locked in a 'pen'?”
It was a fair question. Most often, Corpses just killed Seers on sight. They didn't usually take prisoners.
Before either boy could answer, Helene whispered urgently. “Guys ... look!”
Up the street, figures approached the mouth of the alley, maybe thirty feet away from where we now stood. Grabbing the boys' collars, I yanked them out of sight, pressing them both back against the shadowed brick frontage of a 12th Street warehouse. The Burgermeister came with us, looming over the twins, while Helene peered around the corner onto Callowhill, back the way we'd come.
“Three deaders,” she reported. “No. Four. Looks like they heard their bud's call for help.”
“That was fast,” I whispered. And it was. Corpses often took as much as an hour to respond to a fallen friend. This time, I didn't think it had been five minutes!
Then Dave tapped me hard on the shoulder. “Heads up!” he whispered.
I turned and looked past him. Six more deaders were heading our way, walking south along 12th Street, no doubt also in answer to the telepathic distress call. They were still a block or more away, man-sized shapes lumbering in and out of the circled glow of street lamps. So far, hidden as we were in the shadow of the warehouse, they hadn't noticed us.
But they would.
“Oh crap ...” Helene whispered. Then she pointed in the opposite direction.
Another seven Corpses — maybe more — marched up 12th from the direction of the river. We were completely boxed in.
There were way too many of them and they'd shown up way too fast. Something very unusual was going down, and we'd managed to land ourselves smack dab in the middle of it.
“Trash cans,” Helene suggested, nodding toward a collection of them that someone had lined up across the street. They were all grouped together in front of a darkened restaurant — good cover, if we could get there.
“Not a chance,” Dave replied. And he was right. 12th Street wasn't very wide, but there were five of us — and five huddled kids scurrying like rats across an empty city street would get noticed, even at night. No way to avoid it.
Unless.
I pulled out my pocketknife.
I should probably say right now that this isn't exactly a normal pocketknife. I mean, I didn't get it at a sporting goods store or from the official Boy Scout catalog. It was a gift — a mysterious gift — and the giver is just as mysterious as what she gave me. But all that's another story. For now, just trust me when I say that Tom Jefferson owns the only other pocketknife like it, and even his doesn't do everything that mine does.
The pocketknife, fashioned out of some kind of golden metal, sported eight buttons, all lined up along one side. Of these, it was the 8 button that I was considering. I used it the least, and with good reason. Was there another way? I hated pressing it, though at street level in this part of town the effects wouldn't spread too far — I hoped.
Helene and Dave both looked at me. So did the twins.
“No hospitals in range,” Helene said.
“You sure?” I asked her.
She visibly swallowed. “Pretty sure.” Then her eyes moved up and down the street, at the small army of deaders closing in on us. “There's way too many to fight.”
“Our wrist radios'll get hosed,” I reminded her. “We won't be able to call Haven.”
“We haven't got a choice,” she said.
“No choice at all, dude,” the Burgermeister added.
Nodding, I said a little prayer and hit the 8 button.
The streetlamps up and down 12th Street winked out. So did the lights — and there weren't many — in the windows of the surrounding buildings. So, I knew, did every other piece of functioning electronics within a three or four block radius.
It's called an electromagnetic pulse, or EMP for short.
My pocketknife is able to generate and release a burst of energy that will fry any kind of electronic equipment within its range. Cars and buses stop running. So do subway trains. Cell phones, computers, televisions and video game consoles all get trashed.
Fortunately, at ground level, the pulse didn't reach high enough to affect passing airplanes. And, if Helene was right about there being no hospitals nearby, then they — with all their life support gadgetry — would also be spared.
I could only pray that nobody in range had a pacemaker.
Bottom line: the 8 button was what Tom called “a weapon of last resort,” because the trouble it caused was often worse than the trouble that caused it — if you get what I mean.
The resulting darkness was thick, way thicker than anything you usually get in a big city like Philly. All around us, I heard the surprised grunts of close to twenty Corpses. They didn't gasp; the dead never gasp. You have to breathe to gasp.
And, luckily, they don't see any better in the dark than the living do.
“Now!” I whispered.
We crossed the street, all five of us, moving fast and staying low. As we did, one of the boys — Robert, I think, but how do you really tell with twins? — started whimpering. “Shhh!” Helene told him, clamping a hand over his mouth and hurrying him along.
It took us maybe ten seconds to reach the trashcans and duck behind them. Ten long seconds.
“Stay low,” I commanding, my voice a hoarse whisper.
“And quiet,” Helene added. Then, after Robert nodded tearfully, she took her hand from his mouth.
I risked a peak over the top of the row of cans.
As my eyes adjusted to the new darkness, I watched the shapes of the converging Corpses by the faint glow that leaked in from those parts of the city outside my EMP range. They'd gathered at the mouth of the alley, clearly confused by the sudden black out. As I watched, their collective attention focused on Dead Nurse Two and the gory remains of Dead Nurse One. They seemed to be silently contemplating the carnage, but I knew better.
Words reached us through the cold night air. But not real words. Not human words.
“Who. Did. This?”
“Unknown.”
“One. Is. Destroyed?”
“Yes. Destroyed.”
It was obvious that the very idea had rocked them. Until recently, the Corpses hadn't thought they could be destroyed — and certainly not by a bunch of human children. But that was before the Ritter had been invented.
“Destroyed? How?”
“Unknown.”
“Who?”
“Undertakers.”
Crouched beside me, looking a bit like a bear trying to hide behind a fire hydrant, I heard the Burgermeister mutter, “Duh.” And despite the situation, I smiled.
“Is it just me?” Helene whispered. “Or are they all dressed like hospital people?”
It wasn't just her. Despite the lack of light, I could tell that every single one of these Corpses wore surgical scrubs, a nurse's uniform, or a doctor's white lab coat. The odds of that happening by coincidence — well, there weren't any.
All these medical deaders had responded to the distress call because they'd been nearby.
Because they'd come from the same place.
“Let's find somewhere to hole up and figure this out ,” I suggested.
As the Corpses went to work cleaning up the remains of Dead Nurse One and carrying Dead Nurse Two away, presumably to find her a new host body, the five of us backed away from the trashcans and into the shadows that cloaked the nearest storefront. Then I pulled out my pocketknife again, this time tapping the 1 button to activate its lock picks.
Hey, it's got an EMP! Given that, are lock picks really so crazy?
These were the electric kind — with two thin prongs that fit into pretty much any keyhole and automatically found and worked its tumblers. As I used it to open the store's front door, it struck me that this gadget — being somehow immune to its own EMP — was probably the only electronics functioning for blocks around.
<
br /> As it turned out, I was wrong about that.
But we'll get there.
After maybe fifteen seconds, I heard the lock surrender. Then I turned the knob, quickly ushered everybody inside, and re-locked the door behind us.
The restaurant turned out to be one of the Chinese variety, its front half consisting of booths and square tables, the chairs overturned and stacked atop them. Oriental art adorned the walls, and a big ornate calendar that I couldn't read hung behind the cash register.
The place was very small, and it took me only a few seconds to grasp the layout. Then I led the others to the back of the dining room and through a saloon door. Inside was the kitchen, a cramped but clean space populated by stainless steel counters, gas stoves, and big commercial refrigerators. Gleaming pots and pans hung from hooks, and I lost count of the number of big shiny knives.
But at least there were no windows. That was especially important, since I felt pretty sure our night was far from over.
“We need to get these kids to First Stop,” Helene told me.
“I know,” I said. “But not yet.”
Michael asked, “What's First Stop?”
His brother moaned, “We just wanna go home.”
“Well, you can't go home,” Dave told them. Then, seeing their immediate reactions, scowled and added uncomfortably, “Cryin' ain't gonna help it. Ow!”
Helene had punched his arm again.
“Listen,” I told the twins. “There's a lot we need to talk about. For right now, you're safe. But if you go home, don't you think the Corpses will find you there?”
“Our dad's got a gun,” Michael said.
“Guns don't kill dead people. Anyway, your dad won't even be able to See them,” Helene explained as gently as she could. “Not like you do. Not like we do. Corpses hide what they look like to the grown-up world. To your parents, they'll just look like normal people. Worse, they're smart. They'll make up a story to get you in trouble. Then they'll either find a way to take you, or ...” Her words trailed off. From the look on her face, I got the impression that she'd said more than she'd meant to.
“Or ... what?” Robert demanded.
When Helene didn't answer right away, the Burgermeister did. “Or they'll waste your whole family and then take you. Don't you hit me again!” he snapped as Helene whirled on him. “It's the truth! And the faster they get that, the better chance they got of stayin' alive!”
He wasn't wrong.
“But the good news,” I told the twins, “is that we know of a safe place. It's called Haven, and it's the Undertakers' headquarters.”
“I wanna go home ...” Robert repeated tearfully.
“Where is it?” his dry-eyed brother asked. “Haven, I mean.”
“Can't tell you that,” I replied. “Not until you're there. First you need to go to First Stop, which is a special place we have for teaching new kids like you two all about the Corpses. We'll take you both there. But, before that, I want you to tell us about those dudes out there. All of them are dressed like doctors and nurses ... and I'll bet you know why.”
The boys exchanged unhappy glances. Robert wiped at his eyes.
Michael said, “There was this ad in the paper. A clinic was doing some study on identical twins. They offered ... like ... a ton of money for the 'right' kids. No older'n twelve. No younger'n ten.”
“Seers,” Helene remarked. “They were looking for kids who were just about the right age to get their Eyes.”
I nodded. Then I motioned for Michael to go on.
“Our dad saw it and he said we needed the money. He got laid off from his job last month. Our mom's ...”
“She's in Heaven,” his brother interjected.
“Yeah,” said Michael unhappily. “Anyway, Dad called the clinic. They said we should come in to be 'screened'. So we took the train up from South Philly. Dad was expecting a hospital, but instead it was kind of a warehouse. That should have been a hint.”
“But we needed the money,” Robert interjected again.
“Yeah,” Michael repeated. “So we went in. At first, it was okay. There was this reception room with a T.V. and an XBox, and there were already like a million kids there!”
“All twins?” I asked.
Michael shook his head. “Nope. Not even most of them. Anyway, everybody got a number and the numbers got called in order. There was this lady behind a window in the wall who looked at everyone. If you weren't a twin, they sent you away. A lot of people got sent away.”
“Some of them cussed up a storm!” Robert exclaimed.
“Should've read the ad,” Dave grumbled.
“Yeah,” said Michael. “Finally, we got up there and she saw we were twins and she took our names and asked my dad to sign a piece of paper. Then another lady came out and took my brother and me through a door and down this long hallway to a little room.
“Dad had to stay behind,” Robert added, looking like he might cry again. “We haven't seen him since.”
“How long ago was this?” Helene asked him.
“Four days.”
Jeez, I thought, wondering what kind of story their father had been told.
Then again, maybe the Corpses just killed him and these poor kids don't know it.
“What happened in the little room?” I asked.
“The lady showed us a picture of a monster,” Michael replied.
“A photograph?” Helene asked. “Of a Corpse?”
Both boys nodded, their heads bobbing in perfect unison. I vaguely wondered if it was a twins thing.
Helene and I swapped pointed looks.
“They were after Seers,” she said.
“Seers who were also twins,” I added.
“What for?” Dave demanded.
But I didn't have an answer to that. “What happened after you looked at the picture?” I asked the boys.
As usual, it was Michael who spoke for the two of them. “We told the lady what we saw and she pretended like it was no big deal, but we could tell she was pretty excited. She told us to wait right there ... that she'd be right back. Then she left us alone in the room for a while. We were getting kinda freaked out.”
“I'll bet you were,” Helene told them.
“Then ... he ... came in.”
The Burgermeister asked, “He, who?”
Robert and Michael traded a look that actually sent a chill down my spine. Whatever horrors these boys had suffered, they'd started with “He, who.”
Michael said, “His name’s Dr. Steiger. He runs the clinic. But ...” his voice trailed.
So his brother finished for him. “But he's one of them.”
“A Corpse,” I said.
Two more matching nods. “Everybody in the clinic is,” Robert continued. “Except for the two ladies in the reception area, they're all dead.”
“What happened when Steiger came into the little room?” asked Helene.
Michael swallowed before answering. “At first, he was ... chanting.”
“Chanting?” I echoed.
The boy nodded. “Yeah. A nursery rhyme, I think.” Then he made his voice real deep and weirdly sing-song, and recited: “Ring around the rosie ... A pocketful of posies ... Ashes, ashes ... We all fall down ...” He looked up at us and shuddered. “Then he smiled with that dead face of his.”
Robert nodded. “I almost crapped my pants.”
“Been there, done that,” I told them.
“He said we were very special boys,” Michael continued. “He said we were going to be very helpful to him. But first he needed to make sure we wouldn't be going anywhere until the ... experiment ... was over. Then all these other dead guys dressed in scrubs came in and grabbed us. We screamed for our dad, but Dr. Steiger just laughed and said that nobody could hear us. Then he pulled out this funny little gun and fired something into our necks.”
Then both boys, again with that eerie, unconscious unison, rubbed the sides of their necks at the same time.
“A funny l
ittle gun,” I repeated.
Something nagged at me. Something I'd missed.
I hate that feeling.
Michael said, “Then they dragged us into this big open warehouse space and locked us in the pen with the other kids.”
“Other kids?” Helene asked. “How many?”
“A lot,” Robert replied. “A whole lot.”
“Why do the Corpses want twins?” Dave wondered.
“Maybe they're trying to figure out where the Sight comes from,” replied Helene. “We gotta find a way to call Haven. Steve might have an idea.” Steve was Steve Moscova, the Undertakers’ science expert.
She was right. Except I wasn't listening — not really. I was thinking back to the alley, to those two dead nurses who'd been chasing Michael and Robert. Except they hadn't been chasing them, had they? They hadn't even been running, just walking — slow and leisurely. Like that didn't need to worry about the boys getting away. Like they had all the time in the world.
Those pendants. Little black boxes around their necks. Blinking green.
All of a sudden, I had it — and my whole body went ice cold.
“Oh crap!” I heard myself exclaim. Then, jumping to my feet. “We gotta get out of here. Right now!”
The four of them looked up at me, confused.
“What's up, dude?” Dave asked.
“Trackers!” I said, almost yelling now. “Don't you get it? Steiger lowjacked them!”
For several seconds, they both just stared at me. Finally, Helene said, “Well ... even if he did ... wouldn't your EMP have trashed them?”
I hadn't thought of that. But, of course, she was right. Those little pendants were electronic, and anything electronic would've been fried by the pulse. And even if more deaders came with more pendants from outside EMP's radius, the chips that Steiger had plugged into Michael and Robert would have been cooked too.
A wonderful relief washed over me.
We're safe.
At that exact instant, a pair of dead hands grabbed the Burgermeister from behind.
— or not.
I hadn't even heard them come in. Corpses can be cat-quiet when they want to be. This one pounced from the shadows at the front of the kitchen, near the saloon doors — a Type Three dressed in hospital scrubs, his body a bloating, purple mass of swelling tissues. Suddenly the stench of him enveloped us, making me gag. I scrambled for my water pistol but, as usual, Helene was faster. She fired a stream at the deader, only to hit Dave in the face by mistake.