The Dead

by Gatward, David

  With a yell, he launched the diaries across the cellar. They slammed into the picture of his mom, shattering the glass.

  Silence.

  ‘Feel better?’ asked Arielle.

  ‘No,’ choked Lazarus. ‘All I know is that I’ve just found out that I have a dad I never knew existed and I’m not about to have him die on me now, all right? Wherever he is, we’re going to find him and bring him back.’

  ‘But we still need a clue, Lazarus,’ said Arielle. ‘Are you sure nothing in those diaries told you where he might have gone?’

  Lazarus went to answer – but then he saw something on the wall behind where the picture of his mum had been, something catching the candle light. When he took a closer look, he saw a tiny brass eyelet where a little key would sit.

  Arielle stepped forward. ‘What is it Lazarus?’

  Lazarus didn’t answer. Instead he pulled out the key hanging from a chain round his neck, the one his dad had given him.

  ‘Lazarus?’

  ‘A hunch,’ said Lazarus and slipped the key into the hole. He twisted it and a soft thud somewhere behind the walls of the cellar sent a shuffle of dust from the shelves.

  ‘I know I’m going to regret asking this,’ said Craig, ‘but what the hell was that?’

  Lazarus wasn’t given a chance to answer as the wall in front of him was suddenly split floor to ceiling by a thin line that coughed dust. Then, with a sound like a mill stone grinding, the wall started to slide open. As the gap widened, Lazarus could see behind it a thick darkness swirling like fog, and wide, shallow steps disappeared down into it. But it wasn’t that which made him stumble backwards.

  It was the familiar stench now seeping into the cellar.

  19 Smell of Death

  ‘I’m hoping I’m not the only one who can smell that,’ said Lazarus.

  ‘Smell what?’ asked Craig.

  It wasn’t as strong as the reek that had hit him when he’d encountered Red or the Dead that had grabbed Clair in the hospital, but it was definitely there on the air, slipping from the space in front of him; of that Lazarus was certain. It was a smell he knew he’d never truly forget, almost as though it had seeped into some dark part of his brain to contaminate it forever.

  The stench of the Dead was in that darkness.

  ‘What are you on about?’ asked Craig. ‘It’s just damp air. And cold.’

  Arielle joined Lazarus at the brink of the darkness. She sniffed the air. ‘I hate that smell,’ she said. ‘Always means something bad’s about to happen.’

  ‘But why can I smell it and Craig can’t? It’s just a smell, isn’t it?’

  ‘No,’ said Arielle, ‘it isn’t.’

  ‘Just get to the point, please,’ Lazarus sighed, frustration in his voice. ‘I’m getting tired of figuring stuff out by myself.’

  Arielle went back to the desk and leaned against it, her arms folded. ‘As I’ve told you,’ she said, ‘my role is guardian of the Keeper. There have been many down the years. I protect them. I also bring them into being – and the only way to become one is to experience death and come back. With your father gone to who knows where, I had no choice but to make you a Keeper. And that smell? It’s the smell of death.’

  Despite what Arielle had just said – and Lazarus knew she’d said it before – it didn’t explain what had happened at the beginning of everything for him.

  ‘The smell,’ said Lazarus. ‘I noticed that when I met Red. Before you shot me.’

  ‘Impossible,’ said Arielle, shaking her head. ‘You sure it wasn’t something else?’

  ‘I checked,’ said Lazarus. ‘It was definitely Red. And it was there again when Clair opened the rift and one of the Dead grabbed her. It’s hardly a smell you forget, is it?’

  At this, Arielle’s eyes narrowed. ‘The only way for a Keeper to be able to smell death is to have died in the first place.’

  ‘I think I’d remember,’ said Lazarus sarcastically. ‘You’re the only person I know who’s killed me lately.’

  Suddenly Arielle snatched at Lazarus’s arm, pulled it towards her, her hand on the scar.

  ‘This,’ she whispered. ‘Where did you get it?’

  ‘It’s just a scar from the car accident,’ said Lazarus, wondering why Arielle was so interested. ‘Mum died, I didn’t. Remember?’

  As soon as Lazarus had said those words, they crumbled. He remembered Red, the way he’d reacted when he’d seen the scar, almost like he recognized it.

  ‘You don’t think …’

  Arielle nodded. ‘It’s the only explanation.’

  Craig butted in. ‘I’m sure it’s all very important, whatever it is you’re talking about,’ he said, sounding annoyed, ‘but it would be more polite to acknowledge that I’m here now and again.’

  ‘I didn’t survive the car accident, did I?’ said Lazarus, still staring at Arielle. ‘The scar… Red put it there. That’s why he recognized it. He…’

  The words stuck in Lazarus’s throat. He’d seen Red, spoken to him. So the thought that Red had saved him, now clear as day in his head, was terrifying.

  ‘He what?’ asked Craig weakly.

  ‘For some reason,’ Arielle said, her voice soft, ‘Red saved you, pushed you back into this world. That’s his mark on your arm, scorched into your skin.’

  ‘So you didn’t need to kill me after all,’ said Lazarus. He didn’t know whether to laugh or smack Arielle in the face.

  ‘Looks that way,’ agreed Arielle. ‘Which means you’re pretty unique: a Keeper who’s died twice!’

  ‘What difference does that make?’ said Lazarus.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Arielle, frowning. ‘And that frightens me a little. Experiencing death gives the Keeper a unique gift to sense the Dead. But this, and what you said happened with that nurse friend of yours…’

  ‘You’re beginning to scare me,’ said Lazarus, trying to break a smile.

  Arielle turned back to the dark hole in the wall, leaning her head inside and taking a sniff. ‘This town has always lived with rumors of tunnels under its streets,’ she said over her shoulder. ‘Most are dead ends or just little routes between the cellars of large houses and pubs.’

  ‘But nothing like this, right?’ Lazarus guessed.

  Arielle shrugged. ‘Something’s down there and we’ve no choice I’m afraid – we have to find out what it is.’

  ’You mean we’re going down there?’ asked Craig. ‘Seriously?’

  ‘Lazarus and I are,’ said Arielle. ‘You’re staying here.’

  ‘No way,’ said Craig. He looked mutinous. ‘Not a chance. You’re not going to leave me alone here to wait for some dead thing to come and take over my brain.’

  ‘That’s really not quite how I would describe it,’ said Arielle. ‘And you’re staying here, even if I have to nail your feet to the floor.’

  Craig folded his arms. ‘Well you’d better find a hammer quick,’ he said, ‘because I’m coming.’

  Arielle looked to Lazarus. But Lazarus just said, ‘It’s his decision.’

  A few minutes later, they were standing at the opening, waiting for someone to take the first step. With the aid of the candles and torches they’d found in the house to cut into the thick dark, they could see before them a little more of the worn steps fading down into nothing. They were thick grey flag stones and looked like they belonged more in an old monastery than in the basement of a house.

  The picture Lazarus had in his mind of his dad was now all but obliterated by what he’d learned since he’d opened his bedroom door only a few days ago and smelt that awful smell. New emotions were bubbling up inside him, and he wasn’t quite sure how to deal with them. The dad he’d grown up with, he had no interest in, probably just tolerated more than anything. But this dad he’d now discovered was something else entirely. He dealt with stuff that would send most people insane. This was a dad Lazarus suddenly wanted to get to know.

  Arielle moved down the first few steps, Lazarus and Craig fol
lowed; all of them holding candles and torches to push the dark back. A few steps down, when behind them the door to the basement was nothing more than a yellow oblong of light, Arielle stopped.

  ‘This goes deep, Lazarus,’ she said. ‘Tobias was desperate to hide something.’

  ‘Yeah, but what,’ said Craig.

  ‘I wish I knew,’ said Arielle, and continued down.

  It wasn’t long before the steps bottomed out into a gravel floor. Lazarus, Craig and Arielle found themselves in a cavern. Their voices echoed in it and the light from their candles only barely managed to reach the roof. It wasn’t huge, probably no larger than a town hall, but the darkness seemed even thicker here, thought Lazarus, and it felt like it was trying to grab at their lights and squash them to nothing.

  ‘Where are we?’ asked Craig.

  Lazarus edged forward, flashing his torch about him. He caught sight of a hole in the far wall and when he went over to investigate found more ancient, worn steps heading down to god knows where. And over by the wall, hidden in shadow, he could make out a pile of long boxes covered in dust and dirt.

  ‘There’s more steps over there,’ he said, pointing with his torch, ‘and some boxes or something. You see anything else?’

  Craig and Arielle said nothing.

  ‘The smell is getting stronger,’ said Lazarus, turning to Arielle. ‘Just so you know.’

  Arielle nodded and unsheathed her sword.

  ‘I don’t like the look of that,’ said Craig, seeing the sword for the first time.

  ‘You’re not supposed to,’ said Arielle. ‘Why don’t you two have a quick look around while I check that exit, OK?’

  Lazarus went to walk over to the boxes he’d spotted earlier, but the nausea he was feeling was getting too strong. He needed to sit down.

  Craig joined him. ‘You OK?’

  Lazarus said nothing, but attempted a smile as he lowered himself to the ground. Every other time he’d felt like this, something really bad had happened. He didn’t want to even think what was going to be coming at him out of the darkness down here.

  ‘It’s a bit weird thinking this is under your house and you’ve never known about it, isn’t it?’ said Craig.

  ‘Dad’s got some serious explaining to do when we find him,’ said Lazarus and nodded towards the boxes. ‘You mind checking those out? Just need to let my head stop spinning.’

  ‘Sure,’ said Craig, and headed off across the cavern. But it was when he was nearly upon them that something about the boxes suddenly struck Lazarus as odd.

  He called out to Craig, ‘Are they what I think they are?’

  Craig said nothing and Lazarus watched as he brushed the dust off one of the boxes with his hand.

  ‘There’s a brass plaque here,’ Craig called back.

  ‘What does it say?’

  Craig paused leaned in closer, then said, ‘It’s just a name and a date: Mathew Harker, 1823 – 1883.’

  ‘Coffins,’ said Lazarus, his head swimming now, his vision blurred. ‘It’s a pile of coffins.’

  20 Black Spit

  A yell from behind them made Lazarus and Craig whip round. Arielle was falling back from the steps Lazarus had seen in the wall.

  ‘Lazarus! Craig!’ Arielle yelled, her sword drawn. ‘Get out of here – now!’

  Something walked out of the darkness, pulling itself out into the cavern, its fingers scraping against the wall with a sound of nails on a blackboard.

  Lazarus saw impossible wings burst from Arielle’s back. But where Red’s had been ruined and broken, these were utterly, inexplicably perfect. They fluttered in slow motion, thrumming softly in the air, gently lifting Arielle off her feet. The wings shook, shivered, like electricity was charging through them. With a slow, deliberate beat, they lifted Arielle further. She raised her sword.

  ‘Shit,’ said Craig.

  ‘Couldn’t have put it better myself,’ said Lazarus.

  He felt a tingle in his skin that took him straight back to the hospital ward and what had happened with Clair. Only this thing now before them made what he’d pulled from Clair look like a child’s doll.

  The thing was very clearly a man, only this one was closer to a giant. His arms and legs were like the limbs of old trees, thick and knotted and strong, though his skin was pasty white, almost transparent. Over his clothes he wore a stained and burned leather apron that brushed against the floor as he moved. Hanging from the belt around his waist were a number of hammers and things that looked like pliers. He looked like a blacksmith, thought Lazarus, and he noticed again how the skin of the Dead shone like it was covered in oil. But again it was the eyes that drew him. They weren’t even looking at Arielle, who was standing right in front of it and screaming; they were staring right at Lazarus and Craig and burned with hunger.

  ‘I said get out!’ Arielle yelled again. ‘I can deal with this. I can’t risk losing you as well as your dad, Lazarus!’

  Craig pulled at his friend. ‘Come on!’ he screamed, unable to drag his eyes away from the monstrous thing trying to push past Arielle. ‘Let’s do what she says!’

  The dead blacksmith swept an enormous arm at Arielle who blocked it with her sword and flew backwards with effortless grace. But her blade was stuck in its arm. She tugged and the thing roared, black spit frothing at its mouth. She tugged again, snapping her sword free, and the thing’s arm split, leaking blood across the floor.

  ‘Come on, Laz!’ pleaded Craig. ‘Move it!’

  But Lazarus wasn’t listening. He was staring at the blacksmith. Something inside him was telling him to approach it; that this was his job and no one else’s. Without a glance at Craig, Lazarus moved – towards the Dead.

  ‘What the hell are you doing?’ yelled Craig.

  Lazarus kept walking. The blacksmith was now trying to swat Arielle like a fly. He roared as he spotted Lazarus, then reached for his belt and pulled out a huge hammer. He swung it at Arielle, catching her right wing and sending her crashing into the roof of the cavern.

  Rock and dust filled the air as Arielle yelled and pulled herself out of the rock. She was too late. Lazarus and the blacksmith were only footsteps away from each other.

  Lazarus felt more than a little strange. Deep down he knew he should be screaming, running away, but it was as though that part of his brain had been shut off and all he could hear of it was a faint echo. Even when the blacksmith lumbered towards him, hammer raised, the other arm outstretched to grab him, Lazarus didn’t flinch.

  The hammer came slamming through the air. Lazarus sensed that what the blacksmith really wanted wasn’t to kill him, but to occupy him. And that was impossible if he was squashed flat. So he waited. The hammer skimmed past him and slammed into the ground.

  The blacksmith went to grab him. Lazarus dodged easily out of his way. The hand came again, and again Lazarus dodged. Then, when the blacksmith went for him with both hands, Lazarus made his move. He ducked under the huge body as it stumbled and fell towards him, bringing his hands down on to its head with a wet slap.

  The skin felt slick and greasy. Lazarus felt his fingers sink in deeper than he’d expected, almost like he’d pushed them into soft dough. A screech spewed into the air and the blacksmith shook like he was being electrocuted. Lazarus held on, all the time ignoring that faint distant voice telling him to run.

  The screech grew louder. The dead man’s skin started to bubble and spit. Lazarus knew that even if he tried to, he’d never be able to pull his hands away now, not until this was over.

  The blacksmith twisted away from Lazarus, but it was no good; he couldn’t get away. Under Lazarus’s hands, his skin was smoking and dripping on to the floor like melted wax.

  Lazarus was lost to what he was doing. He was totally focused on this creature in front of him. Whatever power he had in him, he could feel it burning in his veins. He wasn’t going to let this thing have a chance to escape and taste life again.

  Without any thought, a yell split his own throat and he
thrust his hands deeper.

  With a final horrifying bellow, the blacksmith bucked and shook under Lazarus’s touch. His skin split – and then he was nothing more than a vast spreading pool of steaming slime.

  Lazarus stood for a moment, his feet swimming in what was left of the Dead. He was aware that someone was coming towards him. No, two people. But he couldn’t hear them. Then everything went dark.

  ‘Is he OK?’

  Lazarus recognised the voice. He opened his eyes to see Craig staring down at him.

  ‘Lazarus?’

  Lazarus nodded and tried to sit up.

  ‘Take it easy,’ came another voice and Lazarus turned to see Arielle at his side.

  ‘Nice wings,’ he said. ‘Which reminds me, you never did answer my question and tell me what you are.’

  ‘Take his arm,’ said Arielle to Craig, again ignoring Lazarus’s question, ‘and get him to his feet. He needs to walk around after what he just did, get the blood flowing again.’

  Lazarus felt himself pulled upwards. His head swam a little, then the cavern came into focus and he remembered the giant.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘You carried more than just an eviction,’ said Arielle. ‘You sent one of the Dead back through touch alone. Your Dad, like every Keeper before him, used special chants, equipment, but you used nothing! And not only have you had no training, you did everything instinctively. I’ve never seen anything like it. In fact, no one has. What were you thinking?’

  Lazarus could hear a hint of anger in Arielle’s voice, but he ignored it. He felt too tired to argue. ‘I wasn’t thinking anything,’ he said. ‘I just saw one of The Dead and next thing I knew I had my hands on it and it was in serious trouble.’

  ‘Is this what happened with the nurse?’

  Lazarus nodded. ‘I felt more in control this time though,’ he said. ‘I mean,it was like I actually decided to do it, where as back at the hospital with Clair I was just trying to stay alive.’

  ‘But what was it doing here?’ asked Craig shakily. ‘And are there more of them just walking around?’