A Boy and His Corpse (19 page)

Oh, God
, Herbert thought.

Raad paused and stared back at the Devil. A half smile revealed his too-white teeth. He shook his head and leaned in to whisper to his interpreter. The teen put the megaphone to his mouth and replied.

“Surely you do not speak for the
entire
country. We have spoken on countless occasions in the U.N., and we have never heard of such a force as yours,” more translating. “I can see that you are a force of great evil if you can raise the dead from the earth. You are obviously...” the boy looked to Raad and Raad nodded. “You are obviously the great Satan.”

Herbert saw the Devil smile.

“I am an America hero, and I am here to vanquish America’s foes.” And he turned back to the camera. “Because I am America.
We
are America. And this is what we do.”

Herbert very much wanted to speak up and talk about how he wasn’t there for America at all. He wanted to speak up and say how Raad was right and this really was “the great Satan”. He wanted to tell them everyone at home that Lucifer wasn’t an American hero, but rather, an abomination. He knew what the Devil wanted to do now. He wanted the people at home to embrace him. That had been a part of this that weighed on him heavily. Herbert looked back at Mort and saw total disinterest in his eyes. And for Herbert, that was the greatest sin of all—the fact that he’d let the Devil steal his boy from him.

But he couldn’t say any of that, he couldn’t tell the American public the truth because somewhere in the body-shell the Devil possessed, his son still lived.

“I’m afraid you leave me no choice then.” Raad shouted an order without the megaphone and the men around them raised their guns, ready to fire. The interpreter ran back into the cave.

“Get ready,” The Devil said to Herbert. “It begins.”

Herbert turned green once again.

It was time.

President Rosewater

              Rosewater put his hand up to shade his eyes from the flashing lights. Prominent journalists had swarmed on Washington to make sense of what they’d seen on the internet. He stood before them in the White House Press Room, a speech of his own crafting scrolling over the prompter.

              He had broken the news to his advisor, Tom Mitchum, who had immediately called in Budd Stein, the official speech writer. Budd was a man who had a way with words. He could make anyone believe anything. But even he didn’t know what to make of the President’s Undead Army revelation.

             
“How much of this is actually true, Mr. President?”
Budd asked him only a few hours ago as he sat in the Oval Office, his laptop on his lap.

              “As far as I know, all of it.”

              Budd Stein was lost for words.

Vice President, Daniel Tulino, on the other hand, had plenty to say. Rosewater dialed the extension for the Vice President’s private line on Air Force Two. “
What’s going on over there? What’s this I hear about zombies in Afghanistan? I’m on my way back from Uganda. Why didn’t you tell me?”

After hours of debate and argument, Tom dismissed Budd and left the President to write his own speech. Who better to navigate the tangle of lies and secrets than the man who created them?

This onus is mine and mine alone
, he had thought as he paced about his office.
Damn you, Rovas.

One thing he made sure not to do was implicate any past presidents. They didn’t deserve to get thrown under the bus.

He cleared his throat and began.

“Please have a seat and thank you all for coming,” he said to the swath of journalists and cameramen. They all sat down with laptops and tablet devices. “By now, I’m sure you have all seen the video from Afghanistan.” He took a breath. “I am here to confirm that it is not a hoax. Magic is real and a father and son named Herbert and Alan Chandler, respectively, can control corpses with their minds.”

The room fell silent. Dozens of faces stared at him in disbelief.

The President cleared his throat.
Is this really happening?
He pinched his wrist beneath the podium, but no dice. He wouldn’t wake up.

“There is a secret organization called the Undead Militia,” he continued. “I was aware that both the father and son could raise the dead, and have been aware of them since I have taken office.”

He took a second to clear his throat again, but in that second, the onslaught began.

“Sir!”

“Sir!”

“Sir!”

The clamoring came from all sides. The room was a tumult of voices. The President held up his hands in an attempt to calm and quiet them.

“Please, please! Just let me speak!”

The voices were overwhelming. All Rosewater saw were open mouths and microphones.

“What do you mean by ‘raising the dead’?” a female asked. “You mean, like, zombies?”

“Where is this ‘secret organization’ located?’” another asked. The President couldn’t see him over the others. The rest of the questions drowned each other out.

The crowd pushed their way forward and the President backed up. Two secret service men pushed them back.

             
I gotta get out of here!

             
“Hey, everybody! Look!” a loud voice said over the noise. The person who said it stood up on his chair. He was a plump man with a gut that hung over his pants. It was Greg Shepherd, a senior writer for the Boston Mirror. “There’s some more footage coming through right now!” They all rushed back to their seats and devices.

             
Oh, God. What now?

The President came from behind the podium and pushed his way through his secret servicemen. When he leaned in to look at one of the computers, his eyes widened.

              This would undoubtedly change the way people saw the world forever. 

Lucifer

              Flashes fired from the muzzles of the guns. Lucifer held out his hand and formed a shimmering, concave force field.

             
Turn my head! Please! I want to see how my dad’s doing,
Alan said. He was deeper inside himself now than he ever was before, and after this mission, Lucifer was going to push him down even further. But for now, he could make the boy happy. Why not?

              He looked to his left and showed Alan that his father was fine. He even helped form some of the green barrier that made up their force field. The bullets sounded like birds slamming into a sturdy glass window when they smacked the green dome. It was deafening, but visually unimpressive, as the bullets melted as soon as they collided with the force field.

             
Did I always have these powers?

             
“
Yes,”
Lucifer told the boy. “
You just never believed in yourself. I guess your father didn’t, either. Look.”

             
The side of Herbert’s face was a canvas of surprise. His eyes bulged and his mouth gaped when he looked at him.

              “Keep pushing forward,” Lucifer told him. “We’ve got this, man. We’ve got this by the ass!”

              Lucifer looked to the right and James trudged behind the force field. He occasionally turned his head when a bullet splashed close to his face, but he never stopped moving. Lucifer looked behind him.

              “You guys okay back there?” he shouted over the noise.

              The jeep inched forward behind them. Taylor Gint once again made a circle with his thumb and forefinger as he held a camera up over his eye with the other hand. One of the other cameramen drove.

              Mort was left behind in the first jeep, and Lucifer could sense Alan’s fears.

What if somebody sneaks up on him and kills him?

You can’t kill the undead
, Lucifer said
.

You know what I mean.

I’m keeping an eye on him. Don’t worry. In fact, if you want to sink back even further, that would help. I need to keep my focus. Thanks.

As they grew closer to the mouth of the cave, the gun blasts stopped.

              “Keep your end of the force field up,” Lucifer said to Herbert. “Would you look at their faces? They’re terrified! We’ve got them terrified, Herbert!”

              The closer they got, the more the men started to scramble. That is, of course, until one man ran forward ululating with a bomb strapped to his chest.

              Lucifer looked to Herbert and saw fear cloud his eyes. For a moment, Herbert brought down his force field.

              “Put that back up!” he yelled, and Herbert did. “Relax and watch this.” He turned back to the cameramen. “And make sure you get a close eye on this.” The jeep stopped and all of the men put their cameras up.

              Lucifer raised one hand while he kept the other on the force field. The ground before them started to shake, and the screaming bomber, who was only about ten steps away, shut up and stopped in his tracks. At that moment, Hands popped up and grabbed him by the ankles, holding him. The dusky man looked down at his feet and then looked up with quivering lips.

              “Back up,” Lucifer said, and as a group they moved back from the bomber.

              The suicide bomber blew up and his guts and entrails flew everywhere.

             
Gross!
Alan said.

              “I was hoping somebody would come forward,” Lucifer said, smiling. “I felt some dead bodies under there. Unfortunately, we can’t use that guy to fight for us in the condition he’s in now,” Lucifer said to James rather than Herbert. James forced a smile. “Come on, lighten up, kid. I kept you safe, didn’t I? You’ll be with your family soon enough. Are you ready?”

              James nodded.

              They pushed forward, and the men who stayed and hadn’t run off screaming, began to shoot again. Lucifer pushed his hand out through the force field and shot off seven green blasts. Five of them connected, knocking the men down dead. Lucifer raised his hand again and those dead men stood up and attacked the terrified men. It was pandemonium.

             
Do you think they’re getting a good show back home?
Lucifer asked Alan.

              Just make sure you keep my dad and Mort safe, okay?

              And not James?

             
He was quiet for a moment before he said.
Yeah, James, too.

              They arrived at the mouth of the cave and went inside. What they left behind were the screams of men who had never confronted the living dead before.

Lorraine

              Lorraine, like the rest of America, had her eyes glued to the TV. The inside of the cave was dark but a green light shown on the camera, giving the scene a ghost hunting TV show kind of quality. Appropriate since a growing number of dead bodies, their flesh long desiccated leaving nothing more than bones, ambled behind Herbert, James, and the Devil. Her jaw tensed, gnashing her teeth together when she thought about what Herbert had done to her son. The small Undead entourage inched closer and closer to the dictator and his translator, and each step they took was a case study in tension. 

              “Aiiiiiieeee!” the dictator screamed as he tripped and stumbled deeper into the hollow cave. Gone was the man the world had come to know as brutal and sadistic. The dictator who had gassed some of his own people into submission had morphed into the weak, quivering man before them. Raad’s mouth twisted in terror and his eyes, which had always been covered in sunglasses, twinkled in fear. All the while, his interpreter kept shouting, “No! Stay back! Stay back! Please!”

But the remnants of the Undead Militia ignored his pleas. They just kept creeping closer and closer. Lorraine’s lips quivered.

Enough already! Just kill him. Please. Don’t drag this out any longer.

She watched the live footage alone in her house. Chance, was gone by the time she made her way back home. All of his clothes were missing. Their tacit pact to not ask questions about each other’s history was apparently null and void now.

It’s probably for the best. Alan never liked him anyway.