Ghostwalkers

by Jonathan Maberry

  The creature was like nothing Grey had ever seen before. However Looks Away breathed a word, a name, and it rung a faint bell in Grey’s mind.

  “Dinosaur…”

  “What?”

  “By the Queen’s garters that is a bloody dinosaur.”

  “What the hell’s a—?”

  “Something that can’t be here. It’s impossible.”

  The thing snarled at them and took a threatening step forward into the light and in doing so became more impossible still. Now they could see that many of the feathers were bent and broken or missing entirely, and through those gaps they could see that the flesh was strange. Unnaturally pale and withered, like that of some dead thing that had lain rotting in the dark. Maggots wriggled through flaps of torn skin and from many open wounds wafted the dead meat stink of advanced rot.

  “Jesus Christ,” breathed Grey. “That stench…”

  Looks Away gagged. “Dear God, that thing’s … dead.”

  “No,” said Grey, pointing. “It’s worse than dead.”

  In the center of the creature’s chest, amid the feathers, gleamed a multi-faceted piece of black rock that was shot through with white lines.

  Ghost rock. In the chest of an undead monster.

  The creature threw wide its mouth and screamed at them as if defying any classification of either dead or alive. The men raised their weapons in trembling hands, ready to fight, ready to kill this monstrosity.

  But far away, deeper in the large underground chamber, came the answering cry of other monsters just like this one.

  They cried in rage and hate.

  And those cries were coming.

  Straight for Grey and Looks Away.

  Chapter Fifty-One

  “Christ—watch out!” bellowed Grey as he shoved Looks Away to the side as the first of the monsters rushed them. The creature raced toward them and then leaped into the air. Grey saw the third and terrible claw on its foot snap forward and he tried to twist out of the way. The claw hooked into the pocket of his jeans and tore it open as if it was tissue paper. Coins flew across the room and bounced off the metal carts.

  The first of the undead dinosaurs was too close for Grey to get a clear shot at without hitting Looks Away, so instead he clubbed at the thing with the butt of his Colt. The monster shrieked in pain, but instead of shrinking back from its much bigger opponent, it hissed and leaped again, slashing this time at Grey’s groin.

  He flung himself backward and the claw missed him by half an inch. He landed on his back and used the momentum to roll up onto his shoulders so he could kick out with both heels. He caught it square in the chest and sent it flying backward into the side of a metal cart. It struck with a ringing thud and fell dazed to the floor.

  Grey scrambled back to his feet.

  “Move—move!” shouted Looks Away as he surged forward and shouldered him out of the way. The Sioux braced the stock of the shotgun against his hip and fired. Grey twisted around to see the buckshot catch another of the dinosaurs full in the chest just as it launched itself to slash. The blast punched a huge red hole in the center of the thing’s chest, obliterating the ghost rock implant and tearing off its feathered arms and screeching head. Thick, black blood splashed the men, the cart, and the faces of half a dozen more of the monsters.

  Before the echo of the blast could begin to fade, Grey whirled and shot the first creature in the head as it fought to get back to its feet. It flopped back and lay absolutely still.

  “How is this even possible?” demanded Grey as he hastily reloaded.

  Looks Away shook his head, but then said, “Deray is a necromancer. That means he has power over the dead. It looks like he’s discovered some alchemical process for raising the dead and suborning them to his will. Like those creatures who accompanied Lucky Bob. He was a Harrowed but the others were something else. Mindless dead.”

  “Mindless?” said Grey, pointing with the barrel of his gun. “Maybe they can’t think, but that look in their eyes says that they feel something, and it’s not anything good. We need to get the hell out of here.” The death of two of the beasts had momentarily stalled the charge of the others. They stared as if in shock. Then all of the strange, feathered and rotting heads turned slowly toward Grey and Looks Away. Those faces may not have been human, but their expressions were easy to read.

  Hate.

  Rage.

  Hunger.

  “Oh … shit,” said Grey and Looks Away at the same moment.

  The monsters surged forward.

  Both men stumbled backward but they opened fire at the same time. Grey emptied his gun into them. The Sioux fired his last shell. The fusillade of pellets and bullets hit the attacking wave like a storm. Three of the monsters went down into red ruin. A fourth staggered sideways, one eye blown away and blood dark as ink poured from a dozen pellet wounds.

  The remaining two did not pause this time. One jumped at Looks Away, slashing at his belly with its terrible claw. The other did its best to rip open the arteries on the inside of Grey’s thigh.

  Grey felt a line of white-hot fire explode along his hip. He cried out in pain and swung the pistol again and again, clubbing the scything foot, battering at the bizarre creature’s head and chest. It snapped at the gun and caught the barrel between its jagged teeth. If there had been one more round Grey could have blown out the back of its head. Instead as the dinosaur gave a mighty pull on the trapped barrel, Grey released it and emphasized it with a kick to its gut. The monster staggered backward and Grey immediately whipped out his hunting knife. Now he had his own claw.

  “Come on, you undead little bastard,” he growled, baring his teeth at it. He could hear Looks Away and the other monster fighting somewhere behind him, but he didn’t dare turn and look.

  The dinosaur spat out the useless pistol and lowered its head as it prepared to charge. The big claws on each foot tapped downward onto the floor. The thing’s long tail stuck straight out behind it, counterbalancing its weight and twitching with pure rage.

  Then it launched itself at its prey.

  Grey expected it to be fast, but it was so much faster. It became a blur of feathers, scales, teeth, and claws as it leaped into the air, slashing with those claws.

  It was faster than he was.

  He, however, was smarter.

  As soon as it launched itself into the air, Grey dodged to one side and then twisted, pulling his body out of the path of the claws. He did not stab at it. Stabbing is a fool’s way to fight with a knife. Grey whipped his arm in a tight arc that slapped the edge of the blade across the throat of the dinosaur. The combined speed of its leap and Grey’s own speed made the blade bite deep. A black spray burst from the throat, but Grey did not want to make any assumptions about how tough the monster was or if blood loss could ever kill it. He jumped at it as the thing landed, clubbing it with one balled fist and slashing again and again with the blade.

  Feathers flew. Blood erupted. Tissue parted.

  It fell forward onto its wing-like arms, but immediately tried to rise. With a savage howl, Grey raised his foot and began stomping on its head. Once, twice, again and again until the bones shattered and his heel mashed the shards into the creature’s brain. All at once it sagged down into death.

  Grey staggered back from it, then turned as he heard a series of heavy thuds.

  It was Looks Away pounding at the head of the last of the reanimated dinosaurs. Or at the pulpy mess that had been a head. But Looks Away kept hammering and his face was a mask of fear that hovered near the flame of madness.

  “Looks,” said Grey. “Whoa, now … it’s done. You killed it. Ease back now.”

  The Sioux froze with the bloody shotgun raised for another strike. His wild eyes looked at Grey, at the dead creatures that lay everywhere, and then down at the mess beneath him. He lowered the shotgun and sagged back onto his heels.

  “God save the Queen,” he breathed. The mad light faded from his eyes, replaced by shock.

  Th
ere was a squeak and they both whipped around to see the dinosaur with the gunshot wound to the eye staggering slowly away. Black ichor ran sluggishly from its nostrils. It was clearly dying and it left a trail of splay-toed prints identical to the ones that had been on the stairs.

  Looks Away got up, cracked open the shotgun, and dumped the spent shells, fitted two new ones in, and walked up behind the dinosaur. It turned to look up at him with its one remaining eye. It tried to hiss. It tried to slash at him. But it was too far gone.

  “No,” said Looks Away as he placed the barrel against its head.

  The blast was huge and wet and it echoed off of the darkened walls.

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  The last of the booming echoes disintegrated into the sober silence of death. Gun smoke hovered like a chorus of phantoms in the still air.

  His face turned to emotionless wood, Looks Away replaced the spent shell, pulled a handkerchief from his pocket, and began methodically wiping the blood of monsters from his shotgun. Grey said nothing. He limped over to retrieve his Colt, checked that it was undamaged, and reloaded it.

  Then he addressed his wounds. The creatures had done their best to eviscerate him. Only the toughness of his jeans and the leather of his gun belt had saved his life. Even so, there was a bad gash on his hip and it bled freely. The pain was searing and he clamped his jaw shut as he used strips torn from his shirt to compress and bind the wound. It was a sloppy job, but it would serve. Luckily the talon had torn only skin and not the muscle beneath. He could still move easily and he set his teeth against limping. That would wear him out too quickly and besides, it was only pain. Grey had maintained a long and passionate affair with pain. He knew all her secrets.

  Once he was finished he wiped his bloody fingers on his thighs and waited for Looks Away to speak.

  When he did, the Sioux’s voice was filled with both stress and wonder. “These are—or, at least were—dinosaurs.”

  “Yeah, you said that, but I don’t know what that means. They’re animals, right? From where? They from Africa or—?”

  “They’re extinct,” said Looks Away. “All we’ve ever seen are bones and paintings done to try and reconstruct what they might have looked like. Dinosaur. It means ‘terrible lizard.’”

  “Fair enough as something to call them,” muttered Grey. “Ugly sonsabitches works for me, too.”

  “The term was coined by Sir Richard Owen. I met him twice—when our show played in Lancaster, and then again in London. He was a surly, contentious old git who thought Charles Darwin was completely wrong about his theories of evolution.”

  “Darwin? I read about him. A lot of folks said he was trying to say God didn’t make the world.”

  “That’s not precisely what he said. Darwin believed that our world is much older than suggested by the ages of the people named in the Bible, and that long before humans came along there were ages and ages of natural development. The animals and plants that we know today are there because they were the ones best able to survive those long millennia of growth. He also believed that before there were the animals we know about, there were others before them. This was about the only point he and Owen agreed upon, though Owen tended to think that Darwin simplified the process too much.”

  “Did he?”

  Looks Away shrugged. “I studied rocks, not animals. I’m not qualified to judge.”

  He squatted down and studied one of the dead creatures. Grey joined him.

  “So, what are you getting at? Were these things the ancestors of alligators and horny toads?”

  “Maybe. I’ve heard arguments to that effect, and I’ve heard arguments that they evolved into birds.”

  Grey ran his fingers along the feathers. “Seems pretty likely. But if they’re the ancestors of birds and such, why the hell are they here? How did Deray get his hands on them?”

  “That is a very, very good question, old chap,” said Looks Away. “I have a theory, or part of one at least.”

  “Oh, I can’t wait to hear it.”

  “Well, look around,” said Looks Away. “Ever since the Great Quake all sorts of strange things have been happening. Reports of flying lizards and sea serpents. These things are strange, I’ll grant you, but surely they’re not the strangest things that have been said to come out of the Maze. Not if even a tenth of the reports are true.”

  Grey grunted. “Before I came out here I was of the mind that all of those stories started at the bottom of a whiskey glass. Now … well, I mean, does something really actually need to bite you on the ass before you take it as Gospel fact?”

  “For my part, my friend, I shall henceforth endeavor to keep a very open mind.”

  Looks Away grabbed the shoulder of the creature and rolled it onto its back. The chunk of ghost rock embedded in its chest was small, about the size of a grape. The white lines seemed to shift and flow like restless worms, though Grey told himself that it was just the flickering lantern light or his own imagination. “I think that maybe these creatures were trapped down here. See how pale their flesh is? That suggests a life lived away from the sun. When Deray came down here he must have encountered all sorts of strange creatures. Encountered them, slaughtered them, used his sorcery to bring them back to life, and then found a way to enslave them with ghost rock.”

  “I didn’t think ghost rock could do that.”

  Looks Away shrugged. “It can’t, as far as I know. As I said, this is as much alchemy as it is ghost rock science. Maybe more so.” He shook his head. “And God only knows what else Deray has waiting for us. If he can command the dead … the possibilities are staggering.”

  Grey rubbed his jaw and looked back the way they came. “There’s always a war going on somewhere. Countries fighting, land wars, rail wars. Lots of dead people to be had. If you’re thinking what I’m thinking, then we are in deep, deep shit.”

  “My friend,” said Looks Away as he reloaded, “I believe that without a doubt we are in very deep shit indeed.”

  “Deray,” muttered Grey. “More and more I’m getting the feeling that I need to park a bullet in his brainpan.”

  “You, my dear chap,” said Looks Away, “will have to stand in line.”

  Grey knelt beside one of the monsters and plucked a feather out, sniffed it, winced, and tossed it away. Then he peered at the chunk of ghost rock. “I thought there was some kind of rules to this ghost rock business. Same with the Harrowed. The way Brother Joe put it, this was ghost rock or some demons or whatever taking over corpses. That’s what we saw in Nevada, and it’s what you told me happened when that factory blew up in Europe. If that’s the way it’s supposed to work, then how do you explain extinct dinosaurs with ghost rocks in their chests? I mean … give me a place to stand so I can think about that the right way.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t offer you such a refuge, Grey,” said Looks Away. “I am in totally unknown territory here. You know as much as I do.”

  “Which means we don’t know enough.”

  Grey began to reach out and touch the stone, but Looks Away shook his head. “Not with your bare hand.”

  “Why? Does it do something?”

  “I have no idea,” admitted Looks Away, “but we can surmise that the chunks of ghost rock he’s implanted in the chests of his victims—human and animal—allow him some measure of control. They’re clearly his slaves.”

  Grey drew his knife and used the point to touch the stone. It made a dull metallic tink sound. Nothing else happened. “So he took something that was already dangerous as hell and used black magic to make it worse?”

  “Yes. We’ve only begun to understand the nature and properties of ghost rock. Dr. Saint is exploring new scientific directions, and now we have proof that Deray’s necromancy has taken him in even more obscure and frightening directions. It’s so much to consider, but for now we’d best leave it be. We have a job of work ahead of us.”

  “Work?” asked Grey. “As in getting the hell out of here?”

 
Looks Away shook his head. “I don’t think I can do that, Grey. Not at this point. Not after all that we’ve seen. I think we have to gird our loins and enter the belly of the beast.”

  “Meaning what?”

  Looks Away stood and picked up one of the lanterns. “Didn’t you see this?”

  “See what?” asked Grey as he rose.

  “I saw it just as those beasties rushed us.”

  The Sioux walked a couple of paces toward the back of the room and the spill of light revealed a sight Grey had not noticed before. The rear wall of the chamber was in ruins. The naked stone had been shattered, pushed outward by some titanic force, and lay in heaps of rubble. Beyond the debris was a gaping maw of a hole that yawned like the mouth of some fabled dragon.

  “I think that is where our monsters came from,” said Looks Away. “And if my guess is correct that tunnel will lead us to the answers we seek.”

  Grey Torrance closed his eyes for a moment, and in the brief silence he could once more hear the muffled footsteps of the ghosts who haunted him. They were behind him and darkness opened before him.

  “Damn it,” he breathed. Then he opened his eyes and nodded. “Let’s go.”

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Grey didn’t know exactly what “girding one’s loins” meant, but he squared his shoulders and set his jaw as they moved toward the gaping hole. Looks Away padded along beside him, his face grim and determined.

  As they approached the hole it became apparent that the destruction had not been accomplished by anything like dynamite. The whole wall had been pushed into the chamber. They stopped at the entrance and held out their lanterns.