The Undertakers: End of the World (20 page)

A dozen Corpses fell.

A dozen more were devoured, scooped up by two or more legs, and then shoved whole down the Eater’s insanely wide and toothy mouth. I’d seen that horror before. Even so, time and experience hadn’t made it any easier to watch, especially since I knew it was Helene who was doing the eating.

William looked a little queasy, too.

“You get Steve and Emily!” he told me. “Make for City Hall!”

I nodded. “Get the Anchor Shard!”

“You’d better believe it, Mini Me!”

At that, I nearly laughed.

I ran over to Emily, who stared in horror at the monstrosity that was turning another dozen deaders into really, really spoiled sushi. My sister’s eyes, wild with fear, found mine. “What … what
is
that?”

“That’s Helene,” I said matter-of-factly. “Help me with Steve.”

But the moment we tried to lift the injured professor, he vomited up about a gallon of blood and turned into dead weight, pulling us both back down to the street. “Oh, God!” Emily screamed. “No!”

“Get William,” I exclaimed. “We need his help!”

She nodded and hurried toward the center of the arena. Around us, dead bodies littered the cracked roadway and broken sidewalk, way more of them than I could count. But there were still plenty of Corpses left, all of them running one way or another. So far, none of them had noticed me cradling Steve’s head in my lap as I had Amy’s. But I knew that could change pretty quickly, so I kept Vader close at hand.

Future Steve gazed up at me, his pale face glassy with shock.

He’s dying.

I knew it in my bones, the result of far too much experience in this area. Even if William and I could somehow manage to carry the broken man, he’d never last long enough to get back to City Hall.

“I’m sorry,” I told him.

“Four,” he muttered.

“What?”

“Four,” he said again.

“You mean the javelin? The one you taught Sharyn how to use?”

He nodded. More blood bubbled out from between his lips.

“Where is it?” I asked. “I’ll take it back with me and make sure Sharyn gets it. Then we’ll both cross over to the
Malum
homeworld and destroy the Eternity Stone!”

But he shook his head. Tried to speak. Gagged. Couldn’t.

“Steve,” I begged. “Tell me what I need to do! What
is
Four, exactly?”

The words were garbled and so faint that I had to bring my ear close to his lips. He smelled of sweat and blood and courage.

“Two and two,” he whispered.

And then he died.

Suddenly, I forgot all about the Corpses that were still dashing back and forth around us, most of them too concerned with Helene to bother with me. All I saw now was the face of an old friend, a very old friend, and one of the bravest people I’d ever known.

Two plus two equals four.

Maybe, at the end, his brain had simply shut down. Or maybe I’d misheard what he’d said, or maybe there was some piece to this puzzle that I just didn’t have. In any case, it looked like I’d be heading back to the past without the weapon Sharyn had described.

If I made it back at all.

I eased Steve’s head down onto the tarmac, trying not to hurt him, even though I knew he was past hurting. Then I stood up and grabbed Vader.

The Corpse Eater was still doing her thing and showed no sign of tiring. William was battling a small band of Corpses who’d apparently decided to focus on easier prey, while Emily searched the decapitated Queen for some sign of the crystal around the stump of her neck.

As I moved toward them, a dead voice asked, “Going somewhere, boy?”

I spun and drove the sword’s point right through a random Corpse’s throat and out the back of his skull. Then I pulled it out again and continued on my way.

“Not in the mood,” I muttered.

Helene

“I can’t find it!” Emily exclaimed. She’d rolled the Queen’s headless, helpless cadaver over and searched it thoroughly. Meanwhile, Maxi Me handled my pocketknife as smoothly as if it were his—which, of course, it was. Even so, one of the deaders who’d closed around him got lucky, knocking him to the ground with a blow to his temple that I could tell had badly dazed him.

I rushed up, Vader in hand, and cut the wormbag’s head off.

Then the Corpse Eater appeared out of nowhere and took care of the rest of them.

“It’s not here!” my sister finally declared, looking at us miserably.

“Where then?” William wondered. He climbed to his feet, pressing one hand against the side of his head.

I suddenly remembered Dead Toady Guy and looked around, but there were too many fallen Corpses and it was too dark. All of the flashlights were either broken or gone.

“We gotta get out of here,” I said.

“Not without the Anchor Shard,” Maxi Me protested. Blood ran down the side of his face from a gash at his temple. Dizzily, he glanced around before asking, “Where’s Steve?”

Both he and Emily looked at me. I met their eyes. Message sent and received.

Emily covered her face in her hands.

Moments later, I spotted the toady. Like a lot of the smarter Corpses, he’d run off when things had heated up. In this particular case, the cowardly deader had hidden on the mall, in the ruins of the Liberty Bell’s pavilion. But the pulsing light of the Anchor Shard gave him away.

“Help the chief,” I told Emily. “Get him back to Haven. I’ll get the crystal.”

“No!” Maxi Me insisted. From the direction he was looking, I could tell that he’d seen what I had. “
You
go back with Emily.
I’ll
get the Anchor Shard.”

“You’re hurt!” I protested.

“And you’re too important!” he protested back.

Then a voice said, “Just what I need.
Two
Will Ritters!”

We whirled to see Future Helene watching us from just a few feet away. She stood amidst a pile of broken Corpses, with many more of them running off into the darkened city around us. Her hair was stringy with sweat and rainwater, and her eyes had a wild quality to them that I didn’t much like. But at least she was awake, alive and, for the moment, human.

I noticed, with relief, that she’d managed to snatch a long shirt from one of the deaders and had thrown it around herself. The last Corpse Eater I’d met never quite jived to the fact that, when she changed back to human, she was always naked.

Trust me: I did
not
need to see a forty-something version of Helene with no clothes on!

Maxi Me rushed over and scooped her up in his arms, the gesture so sudden and sincere that I actually got a lump in my throat. Does that sound lame? Well, if
you
ever get the chance to watch
your
older self get reunited with the love of
your
life, let’s see if
you
shrug it off.

“Dear God …” I heard him gasp. “I don’t believe this. I thought I’d lost you.”

“You had,” Helene replied, smiling through her tears. “But then I heard your voice and … I don’t know … it woke me up.”

He pulled back and looked at her. Then, slowly, he turned his head and looked at
me
.

The best I could offer was a shrug.

He laughed and hugged her again.

“We can’t stay here,” I told them both.

And we really
couldn’t
. While the deaders immediately around us were all down for the count, the rest of the horde remained out there, somewhere in the rain shrouded darkness, probably regrouping.

“We still need the crystal,” Emily pointed out.

“I’ll get it,” the chief declared, turning toward the place where Dead Toady was still hiding.

But Helene put a hand on his arm. “You’re hurt. Start heading back to Haven. I’ll get it.”

“
We’ll
get it,” I corrected.

Maxi Me looked about to protest. He even took a couple of steps in the direction of the pavilion, but then his knees wobbled and both Emily and Helene had to step up and support him.

“Okay,” he said, sounding sick at heart. “I give. But we can’t risk you, Will. We just can’t.”

“I’ll protect him,” Helene replied, and something in her voice—a hard edge that didn’t sound entirely human—made William regard her nervously.

“Works for me” I said, sounding much more confident than I felt. “You and Emily get going. We’ll be right behind you!”

The chief looked like he wanted to say something more, but finally nodded and let Emily lead him away. As she did, I yelled, “Hold up!” and tossed my sister the Hugos I still had on my belt, the only bit of my arsenal that the new Queen hadn’t seen fit to confiscate.

Emily snatched them out of the air and, helping William, the two of them disappearing into the shadows across Market Street—probably in search of a nice, private manhole cover.

Meanwhile, Helene Ritter and I headed for the ruins of the Liberty Bell pavilion.

Around us, the darkened, rain-soaked streets were peppered with the moans of dozens, maybe hundreds of frustrated Corpses, all of which—so far—were too afraid of the
gravveg
to risk another attack.

But their cowardice wouldn’t last forever.

After about a minute of picking our way through what was left of the pavilion walls, we reached the place where I was sure Dead Toady had been. But the spot was empty. Most likely, he’d seen our approach, realized he’d been spotted, and had retreated deeper into the maze of shadows filling the block-long park.

“Now what?” I asked.

Helene didn’t answer right away. Instead, she stopped, lifted her head and flared her nostrils, as if testing the air. It was an eerie gesture, very alien, and I suddenly reminded myself what this woman could change into, and how dangerous and unpredictable that “what” could be.

At last she said, “He headed back to Independence Hall. Let’s go!” And then she started sprinting across the mall.

“Wait!” I called, but it was no good. She quickly outdistanced me, moving much faster than a human being had any right to. “Helene!”

She stopped within a few yards of Chestnut Street, surrounded by burnt tree stumps and shattered concrete. Her attention seemed fixed on something ahead of her, though it wasn’t until I caught up, panting heavily, that I realized what it was.

Dead Toady stood right at the mall’s southern edge, the gigantic silhouette of Independence Hall at his back. The Anchor Shard hung around his neck, its crystalline mystery still pulsing with eerie, otherworldly light.

And, in his arms he carried the limp body of a woman.

He looked at us—and we looked back at him.

“
Gravveg
,” he snarled.

“Dead man,” Helene replied.

“Stand aside,” he said, trying to lend an air of authority to the command. But I could tell by the way his stolen body shivered that he was terrified.

Helene, of course, didn’t move.

“What’s the body for?” I asked.

“My Queen needs a new host,” he said. “Now stand aside, humans!”

“Only one of us is human,” Helene remarked, her eyes beginning to flash different colors.

Red, green, yellow, blue, red, green, yellow, blue.

I knew what
that
meant.

She transformed in an instant, just a blur of color and motion that changed woman into Corpse Eater. For a moment, the creature now at my side glared its red eye at Dead Toady, who uttered a frightened squeak, dropped the cadaver he’d been carrying, and turned to run.

He didn’t get two steps.

The Corpse Eater landed on him, grabbed his struggling body with her two front legs, and lifted him off his feet. At the same time, her mouth, that impossibly
big
mouth of hers, opened wide, revealing enough teeth to turn a great white shark green with envy.

“No!” I cried. “Don’t eat him!”

She ate him.

He went down her gullet. She swallowed every bit of him in one go, including his clothes, shoes—

—and the Anchor Shard.

Fantastic.

Then the Corpse Eater turned toward me, her yellow eye showing. I expected her to change back, to transform once again into forty-something Helene Ritter. But she didn’t.

Instead, a word drilled its way into my mind.
Run.

“What?” I asked. “Why?”

The creature’s bizarre head tilted toward the body on the ground, the one that the Late and Unlamented Dead Toady had been carrying when we’d run into him. A new body for the fallen Queen.

“But that’s no problem,” I said. “We’re too far away from Market Street. There’s no chance that Corpse Helene could Transfer to—”

Then the dead woman’s eyes snapped open.

You know how, in the movies, newly animated cadavers sit stiffly up and then turn their heads to look malevolently at you?

Well, this one leaped to her feet like a panther and attacked.

Run!
the Corpse Eater repeated, again in her telepathic voice. Then she launched herself at the newly risen Royal. But this time around, the Queen saw her coming and stepped smoothly aside, seizing one of the creature’s ten legs. With a mighty heave, she tore it from the body.

The Corpse Eater made no sound, but its voice screamed inside my head, full of rage and agony.

“No!” I cried. I still had Vader and I charged with it now, raising the sword high. I’d lopped off more than a few heads tonight, after all. One more wouldn’t—

But Corpse Helene wasn’t there anymore. She’d danced away from my slash in a blur of Royal speed and grabbed my sword hand. With a savage squeeze that made me cry out in pain, she wrenched the weapon away. Then, stepping clear of me, she took the sword in both hands and brought its blade down across her knee.

Sharyn Jefferson’s famed
wakizashi,
which had seen
so
many fights
,
snapped like a dry twig.

Crazy as it must sound, given everything I’d seen, I couldn’t quite believe it.

But, before I could even begin to think of what to do next, the
gravveg
vaulted over me—I mean right over my head—and hurled itself at the Queen. The creature, I saw with dismay, wasn’t moving quite as fast anymore, and as it passed above my head, hot black blood drizzled down on my scalp. It smelled like sulfur.