The Dead

by Gatward, David

  Lazarus took another step back, tripped, fell. Everything he was saying – thinking – sounded like total nonsense. But he knew that it wasn’t.

  He heard Arielle speak to Craig.

  ‘You have to trust me,’ she said, leaning down next to him. ‘Lazarus is more important than you could possibly imagine. We have to get him inside my truck and to safety. Now.’

  ‘No!’ Lazarus protested, but for the first time since waking up in hospital, he felt too weak to move.

  ‘Craig,’ pleaded Arielle, ‘we don’t have time for this.’

  ‘Did you shoot him?’

  Arielle didn’t answer.

  ‘Did you shoot him?’

  Craig’s voice was laced with fear and confusion.

  ‘Yes,’ Arielle answered. ‘I shot him. I killed him to save him. To save us all.’

  Craig was silent. Lazarus tried to get to his feet, but the best he could manage was to rise to his knees. He looked up at Arielle. How could he trust her?

  ‘You have to come with me, Lazarus,’ she said, moving away from Craig. ‘Without your father, you are the only hope we have of stopping the Dead.’

  Lazarus went to protest, but didn’t have the energy. Then Arielle was next to him and he felt himself being picked up with tremendous ease. A few moments later he was sitting in the vehicle. A seatbelt was clipped round him. He tried to push it away, but he was too weak; his hands, his arms didn’t respond.

  ‘Craig?’

  Arielle again. Lazarus saw his friend standing up the alley by his bike, Arielle bathed in the headlights of the truck, waiting for him. Craig didn’t move. Instead, he just whimpered, ‘You shot him…’

  ‘Don’t do this, Craig…’ said Arielle, her voice turning to a growl.

  Craig didn’t listen. Instead, he yelled out hard and loud, ‘You shot him!’ Then he started shouting. ‘Help! Someone, please help!’

  Lazarus saw Arielle react, knew he couldn’t do anything. One minute she was in front of the truck, a black shadow bathed in light, the next she was with Craig.

  ‘Get off me!’ screamed Craig. ‘Leave me alone!’

  A thump from the back of the truck made Lazarus turn and he saw Craig tumble in and bang his head in the dark. Then the door was slammed shut and Arielle pulled herself in to the driver’s seat. She hit the accelerator, and Lazarus felt himself pushed straight back in his seat. Considering the size of the vehicle, it was charging along at a terrifying speed. The houses soon gave way to fields in a blur of grey and green.

  ‘Where are you taking us?’

  ‘’Home,’ said Arielle, all the time keeping her eyes on the road ahead as she whipped the vehicle round a sharp corner, sending Lazarus sideways. He heard Craig groan in the back of the truck as he was thrown around in the dark.

  ‘But you shot me!’ said Lazarus.

  ‘You’ll get over it,’ said Arielle. ‘Why were you running? You knew I was coming. And you’ve involved Craig, now. What were you thinking?’

  ‘That I had to get the hell away from you, that’s what!’

  ‘This is no time for running, Lazarus,’ said Arielle. ‘Without your father—’

  ‘Without my father what?’ Lazarus butted in. ‘Like I’ve said a thousand times, this is Dad’s problem, not mine.’

  ‘But you’re already involved,’ said Arielle. ‘You’ve never had any choice in the matter. It was only a matter of time – just your time came early, that’s all. And it’s why I shot you.’

  ‘That makes sense,’ Lazarus said sarcastically.

  ‘It will eventually.’

  Lazarus couldn’t think of anything else to say. He glanced around the inside of the truck to Craig, who was rubbing his head. You OK? he mouthed. Craig nodded.

  The truck, Lazarus saw, had been converted into a basic motor home: a two-burner gas stove with a small oven beneath, a small fridge, a sink, a bed on top of which lay a sleeping bag, and plenty of storage. It wasn’t exactly luxury; the mattress of the bed was worn and the décor badly chipped. The small window in the side of the truck was too dirty to see through. And the carpet on the floor had seen better days – not that Lazarus could see much of it. It was covered with neatly lined rows of empty wine bottles.

  ‘Charming,’ said Lazarus, turning back to stare out the windscreen. ‘Going away for the weekend?’

  Arielle ignored Lazarus’s sarcasm. ‘It’s a Land Rover Defender one-thirty done to my own specifications,’ she said. ‘It’s not designed for comfort, but it’s tough as hell and is just about bombproof.’ Then she nodded at Lazarus’s lap. ‘Where did you get that?’

  Lazarus looked down. The spike was still clasped in his hand, all but free of the rags he’d wrapped it in. The sudden realization and sensation of it in his hand repulsed him, and he dropped it into the foot well.

  ‘What happened, Lazarus?’ Arielle asked. ‘Tell me.’

  Lazarus heard Craig scrabble forward and saw him lean over the front seats.

  ‘It was Clair.’ Lazarus sank back into his seat, staring into the darkness beyond the truck. His voice sounded distant, like he was talking from inside a dream. ‘She’s a nurse, remember?’ he added, for Craig’s benefit. ‘She came in to see me. I thought she was there to check up on me. But she wasn’t. There was something inside her. I think it was the Dead that grabbed her back at the house. It cut me with that spike, as a warning maybe. Then things got out of hand.’

  ‘One of the Dead came after you?’ asked Arielle sharply.

  Lazarus nodded. ‘Clair ... she, I dunno, said something about the Dead coming. Like Red had said, remember? I told you about that, right?’

  Arielle nodded.

  ‘Then Clair started screaming. I grabbed her and I could see that thing inside her. It was like my hands were stuck to her skin. The thing came out. I skewered it with the spike.’

  Lazarus trailed off, lost suddenly in flashbacks to the fight.

  Arielle swung the truck off the main road and on to a thin country lane. The speed she was doing, Lazarus hoped to God they didn’t meet someone coming the other way.

  A beep sounded from the back of the truck. Arielle snapped round at the same time as Lazarus and they both saw Craig with a phone to his ear.

  16 Road Kill

  Arielle shouted, ‘Don’t be a damned fool!’

  ‘But you shot Lazarus!’ Craig replied. ‘For all I know you’re taking us off into some wood to make sure we’re properly dead. I’m calling the police – they’re on the phone now!’

  Arielle glanced at Lazarus before spinning the truck round a corner and sending a cloud of gravel and muck over a hedge to scare a few cows, and Craig on to the floor to lose his phone. The look in her eyes made him understand that if she’d wanted them both dead, they would be. And no one would know about it for a very long time. Arielle dropped a gear, then bounced them off the road and along a track sunk deep and quiet into thick woodland. And when it felt to Lazarus like wherever they were no light would ever get to them, the truck skidded to a halt and the sound of Craig bouncing around in the back stopped dead.

  Arielle leapt out of the truck and Lazarus heard the rear door open and Craig dragged out. The door was slammed and she was back in the driver’s seat.

  Lazarus heard Craig scream as Arielle slipped the truck in to first.

  ‘You can’t leave him here.’

  ‘I can do whatever I want to do,’ said Arielle and pulled the truck round. Lazarus could now see Craig in front of them. He looked terrified, and the lights from the truck were blinding him.

  ‘Either he comes or I don’t cooperate,’ said Lazarus.

  Arielle didn’t listen, just started to edge forward towards Craig. Lazarus was suddenly more than a little afraid for his friend. Was she really going to run him down?

  Craig started to back off in to the woods.

  ‘I’m serious,’ said Lazarus, and knew he sounded desperate. ‘Craig comes or you may as well just kill us both here and now.’

&n
bsp; ‘Don’t tempt me, Lazarus,’ said Arielle.

  ‘I mean it,’ Lazarus replied. ‘Either you let Craig back in or whatever it is you want from me, you ain’t going to get!’

  Arielle jarred the truck to a halt. For a second that felt to Lazarus like it lasted for a year, she just sat there. Then, without a word, she pulled open her door, strode over to Craig, and dragged him kicking and screaming back to the truck, and opened the rear door.

  ‘Get in.’

  Lazarus looked round. ‘Just do what she says,’ he said. ‘Unless you want to be road kill.’

  Craig jumped in, Arielle slammed the door. Lazarus didn’t know if he felt relieved or not. It didn’t matter. He and Craig were alive, and that was at least something.

  As Arielle pushed the truck in to the night, no one said a word. But the silence was deafening and when Arielle at last spoke, Lazarus was almost pleased. Almost.

  ‘You need some answers, Lazarus,’ she said. It was a statement, not a question.

  ‘No kidding,’ replied Lazarus sarcastically.

  ‘What you did to that nurse is called an eviction,’ said Arielle. ‘The Dead need a body to survive, so when they come through that’s all they want. The best way to live again is to sink themselves into a nice fresh body.’

  ‘I’m guessing that’s as horrific as it sounds,’ said Craig from the back of the truck.

  Arielle nodded. ‘If one of the Dead occupy you, they don’t kill you, they just lock you away. It’s a bit like being trapped in a glass suitcase while someone moves into your house and trashes it.’

  Craig fell silent.

  ‘And Lazarus,’ said Arielle, ‘you're not supposed to know about any of this – not yet, anyway. And Craig’s not supposed to know any of it at all. But I’m guessing he knows more than he should already, right?’

  Craig said nothing. Lazarus just looked at Arielle and waited for her to speak again.

  ‘It's not my job to tell you any of this,’ she said. ‘But I guard the Keeper. That’s my role. Always has been. So that’s how I know your dad, being as that’s his job.’

  ‘So the security thing’s just a cover?’ asked Craig and Lazarus could hear in his voice that he was doing his best to pull himself together and push his fear deep down. It didn’t matter – it was just good to have Craig along.

  Lazarus was beginning to see that whatever his dad had told him about what he did nine-to-five, well, it wasn’t exactly the truth. His dad had a secret life, one he’d never told him about. Lazarus wondered what else he didn’t know, what else lay hidden.

  ‘So how do you know Red?’ he asked Arielle abruptly.

  ‘We go back a long, long way,’ said Arielle.

  Lazarus could tell she was hiding something. He didn’t like it.

  ‘Just before you shot me,’ he said, ‘something weird happened, didn’t it? To you, I mean – not just the fact that you put a bullet in me.’

  Lazarus saw confusion light itself in Arielle’s eyes.

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Wings,’ said Lazarus. ‘I hadn’t really thought about it until now. Red had them, and that was wild, trust me.’

  ‘Wings?’ said Craig in disbelief. ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘And I saw them in the darkness behind you, just before you pulled the trigger,’ Lazarus went on, still staring at Arielle. ‘I’m right, aren’t I?’

  ‘It’s not important,’ said Arielle.

  ‘Yes it is,’ Lazarus replied. ‘Red said he was one of the Fallen, whoever they are. Then you turn up with wings as well. So what are you, Arielle?’

  For a few moments Arielle gazed out through the windscreen, gripping the steering wheel. At last she turned back to Lazarus.

  ‘If you really do want the truth, then I can only tell you a little.’

  Lazarus made to protest but Arielle raised her hand.

  ‘If I tell you everything now, Lazarus, nothing will make sense. We – you – have to take this one step at a time or you’ll never learn anything. OK?’

  Lazarus nodded.

  ‘Good,’ said Arielle.

  ‘I just want to say,’ Lazarus put in quickly, ‘that whatever weird occult stuff you and Dad are into, that’s for you to deal with. I’ll help you find Dad, but that’s it.’

  ‘There’s nothing you or anyone else can do about it,’ said Arielle. ‘The world needs you.’

  Lazarus stared. ‘Shut up.’

  ‘I’m not joking,’ Arielle responded calmly.

  ‘Then don’t come at me with such stupid corny lines,’ said Lazarus. He turned to Craig. ‘Can you believe this? The world needs me? I mean, what?’

  Craig was silent.

  ‘And,’ said Lazarus, on a roll now, ‘When’s Dad ever helped me? When’s he ever been there? I don’t see why I should be any different for him, do you?’

  ‘This isn’t just about your father,’ said Arielle. ‘This is about all humanity.’

  ‘There you go again with the lines,’ sneered Lazarus.

  Arielle turned on him. He saw anger in her eyes.

  ‘Your father’s gone, Lazarus! Disappeared. For all we know, he’s dead!’

  ‘Dead?’

  No matter what he thought of his dad, the sudden thought of him being dead scared Lazarus. He was the only family he had. Without him, that was it. No one. No one at all.

  ‘You say you spoke to Red?’

  Lazarus swallowed and nodded.

  ‘He’s not been seen for thousands of years, Lazarus,’ said Arielle. ‘For him to look for your father means things are bad. Really, really bad.’

  ‘This is all to do with him telling me the Dead are coming, isn’t it? All that stuff about Dad being the Keeper?’

  Arielle nodded.

  ‘Red drew this picture in the living room,’ said Lazarus, thinking back. ‘It was two circles, one small one inside a much larger one. He said they were veils or something. Told me to tell Dad what he told me.’

  ‘And what did he tell you?’

  ‘Like I said,’ said Lazarus, ‘that the Dead are coming. And then he said something about someone trying to push through from his side and that they had to be found and stopped.’

  ‘He said that?’ Arielle looked paler than usual. ‘But that would mean …’

  Lazarus snapped round at this. ‘You know something, don’t you?’

  Arielle stayed quiet. Lazarus tried some guess work. He figured he’d seen enough of what was going on to give it a decent shot.

  ‘When Red came through to meet me, he had to force a way through the veil, right?’ he said slowly. ‘I know that because it really messed him up trying.’

  Arielle stared at Lazarus. No emotion, not a flicker.

  ‘The Dead can’t do that,’ Lazarus went on. ‘They need something or someone to open up a way for them. Which is what Clair did, so I’m guessing the veil was weak where Red had come through and it was just bad luck that we brought in someone who’d open it again.’

  Lazarus thought Arielle looked almost impressed. Feeling more confident, he continued.

  ‘So, if Red thinks someone is trying to push through the veil from this side, then they’ve got two choices: either find a weak area of the veil and open it, or weaken it themselves. But I don’t see how that’s possible. If Red found it difficult getting through, what chance would a normal person have?’

  ‘Very good,’ said Arielle at last, and Lazarus was sure he saw a shadow of a smile flicker across her face. ‘Though you’re forgetting the third choice.’

  ‘What third choice?’ asked Lazarus.

  ‘A gate,’ Arielle answered. ‘A gate through the veil from this world to the land of the Dead.’

  It was Craig who spoke next.

  ‘You’re joking aren’t you? A gate? But that’s impossible, surely. For a start, why would such a thing exist? And if it does exist at all, why haven’t the Dead just bashed the thing in and flooded through?’

  ‘Craig?’ said Lazarus. ‘What’s i
t like to actually be in a horror movie for once rather than just watching them?’

  Craig thought. ‘I miss the popcorn,’ he replied.

  17 Grey Spectre

  ‘We don’t need to worry about the gate,’ said Arielle.

  ‘I’m beginning to think I need to worry about everything,’ said Lazarus.

  ‘It was broken up, the pieces lost. Some even think that it never existed in the first place. That it was just a wild idea that sent more than a few people insane in trying to find the thing.’

  ‘Why mention it then?’ Lazarus demanded.

  ‘Adds a bit of color to the story.’

  A thought struck Lazarus. He stared into Arielle’s eyes.

  ‘You think Dad’s gone after the person who’s trying to get through the veil, don’t you? Wherever they are, that’s where we’ll find Dad. And that’s why you’re so worried, because he’s gone alone. You’re supposed to be with him. So actually, this is all your fault.’

  ‘I have no idea where he is,’ Arielle said. ‘He just vanished. He’s supposed to tell me what he’s doing. That’s why we have regular meetings. But he didn’t show. It is most certainly not my fault!’

  Lazarus was rather pleased to see he’d managed to get her a little annoyed. Maybe he’d be able to use that to his advantage later on.

  ‘Dad was anal about everything,’ he said. ‘He’s bound to have a record somewhere in the house of where he’s gone. He just couldn’t arrange to go off like that without leaving some kind of paper trail. It’s not his style.’

  ‘You sound like you know him well,’ said Arielle.

  ‘No, I don’t,’ said Lazarus. ‘He’s just a creature of habit, that’s all. I just live with him. Anyway, none of this is explaining why you shot me, is it?’

  ‘I had to,’ said Arielle. ‘For someone to become a Keeper, they have to die first. It’s my job to arrange that. And to bring them back.’

  ‘But I’m not the Keeper, Dad is!’ said Lazarus, his voice rising. ‘And there’s no way I’m following in his footsteps, you hear? No way at all!’