Undead to the World (29 page)

“Sounds more like they’re trying to invoke a deity,” I remark. “The God of Oh, I think.”

That’s as far as we get before Zev comes flying through the open doorway. From her
surprised shriek, I guess Sally wasn’t expecting her current boyfriend’s sudden arrival.
Neither was I, frankly, but it looks like Terrance still has some influence in the
decision-making process.

“Terrance and Sally had a thing,” I tell Charlie as we look down at the naked man
sprawled at our feet.

“Looks like Zev has one, too,” Charlie observes. “Guess Sally wanted to compare.”

Zev grins, then bounds to his feet like a chimpanzee. “Buddy!” he says as Terrance
steams outside, a naked Sally trying to hold him back. “Come on, man—it’s not like
you were
serious
about her—”

I step between them. “Cut it out,” I snap. “Hey, Doc—remember who you are.”

That stops him. He blinks, breathing hard, and forces the scowl off his face. “Sorry,”
he mumbles. “You’re right. I don’t even know this woman.”

“Doc?” Sally says. She looks Doctor Pete up and down, notes the tattoos and absence
of haircut or shave. “You’re not … what the hell’s going on?”

“Long story,” I say. “Both of you get dressed, then get back out here. Zev, we need
your help.”

Zev shrugs. “Okay. No hard feelings, right?” He claps Doctor Pete on the shoulder
as he strolls past.

“Loyal to the end, huh?” Charlie says.

They’re back out in a few minutes. “We thought it was the apocalypse,” Sally blurts
out. “All the crazy stuff happening? That freaky storm that won’t let anyone leave?
And—and what happened to
Alexis
—” She breaks down and starts to cry. It looks like she wants to fall into Terrance’s
arms, but Terrance isn’t here anymore. Doctor Pete regards her with all the warmth
of a snowman in midwinter—as opposed to a new man in January.

“What happened to Alexis?” I ask.

“She called me,” Sally sobs. “She was driving. Said she had to get out of here. I
told her she
couldn’t,
that the lightning would get her, but she wouldn’t
listen.
I heard it strike, and she
screamed,
and then there was this horrible
buzzing
noise.…” That’s as much as she can get out; her sobs become wails, and it’s Charlie
who grabs her before she can hit the ground.

Doctor Pete looks grim. Zev looks unimpressed. “Zap zap
zap,
right off the
map,
” he says. “At least it was quick. One tap of the cosmic cattle prod and you’re burnt
toast—not even time to do the Frankenstein Shuffle.” He mimes a stiff-legged sleepwalker
pose, then jitters violently from side to side.

I deck him. It’s a carefully calculated blow, delivered with my elbow and not my fist,
and while it may loosen a few teeth or crack his jawbone, it won’t actually kill him.
His head snaps to the right, he spins halfway around and then drops bonelessly into
the dirt.

“Damn it,” I mutter. “Now we have to wait for him to wake up.…”

We stick him in the rear seat between Doctor Pete and Sally, while Charlie drives
and I ride shotgun. We head back the way we came and keep going, all the way through
town. It’s still eerily deserted, no one on the streets at all. This may not be the
end of the world, but you can see it from here.…

Zev didn’t tell Terrance much about the tunnels, and they’re too extensive for me
to recall them in detail from the brief glimpse of the map I got—but I remember a
few things. One is the well beneath the church; the other is an entrance located in
a basement.

The basement of the Longinus house, of course.

We park outside. The constant thumping from the trunk has stopped. Sally’s so overwhelmed
she hasn’t even noticed it, and Zev is still unconscious—until Doctor Pete does something
medical involving a nerve cluster and a sharp pinch. Zev snaps awake with a howl of
pain.

“Rise and shine,” says Doctor Pete.

“Where are we?” Zev asks, rubbing his jaw.

“Old Man Longinus’s house,” I say. “He asked me to water his plants while he’s out
of town, but I can’t find the darn watering can. You’re going to help me look.”

“Yeah, sounds like a real party, but I think I’ll pass.”

“He said something about it being in a tunnel.”

Zev’s eyes get wider and he barks with laughter. “Oh! I get it. You want to get
down
and
dirty
underneath the
streets.
I can dig
that.
”

“I don’t want to do any digging, Zev. More like a little hunting.”

“Yeah? You planning on throwing together a rat stew? ’Cause that’s about all that’s
down there—” He stops as he realizes what I’m talking about, and a smile spreads across
his face. “Oho. I gotcha. What the hell, why not? Go after the Gallowsman before he
comes after us. Hope you got a really
big
pair of scissors, though.”

I show him the shotgun. “This’ll have to do.”

“Got one for me?”

“Sorry, no. You’ll have to rely on your razor-sharp wit.”

“Hey, story of my life.”

We get out of the car. Sally looks around nervously. “This is crazy. I must be
crazy.
”

“Well, you slept with
him,
” I say, jerking a thumb in Zev’s direction. “Not exactly a ringing endorsement of
clear thinking … but crazy? Nah. I know crazy. This is dangerous and possibly a horror-movie
cliché, but there’s a lot to be said for a preemptive strike—not to mention the element
of surprise. If the victims in all those slasher films tried running
at
the killer instead of away, they’d probably stand a lot better chance of surviving.”

We step onto the porch and I try the door. Still unlocked. I open it and lead my little
band inside. The house has that empty feel, but I stay alert as we head down the hall
and into the basement.

The room with the altar is just like Charlie and I left it; if someone’s been here
they haven’t moved anything. I kick a black pillow out of my way and stand in the
center of the room, doing my best to remember what I saw on the map. The entrance
had been close to the south wall, but not on it—which would mean …

I walk over to the altar. It looks like a single chunk of solid stone, but my fingers
find a very faint seam an inch or so below the top.

Zev steps forward. “It’s on a swivel,” he says. He puts his hands on the edge and
pushes; the top of the altar grates to one side in an arc.

“How’d you find out about this?” I ask him, peering inside. A wooden ladder descends
into darkness.

“Let’s just say that some middle-aged married ladies in this town like to drink wine
in the afternoon with irreverent young stud muffins,” Zev says. He fumbles with the
underside of the lid, then produces two flashlights, one a small LED and the other
the old-fashioned kind with the long, rubberized grip. “Ladies who like to show off
how sophisticatedly
perverse
they are. Not much compensation for all the sagging flesh, but better than dressing
up in a clown costume and calling her Mommy.…”

He gives the small light to me, and keeps the other for himself. “After you,” he says.

I hand the shotgun to Charlie, turn on the flashlight, and shine it down the hole.
The ladder goes down about twenty feet and ends in what looks like stone. I hold the
light between my teeth and clamber down, hoping I won’t run into any booby traps along
the way.

I get to the bottom and look around. The tunnel’s like something you’d find under
the streets of Paris, or maybe Rome. An arched roof overhead; flat, smooth floor;
everything made of mortared stone. The tunnel goes straight for about thirty feet
and then branches.

“All clear,” I say. “Come on down.”

Doctor Pete, Zev, and Sally follow, with Charlie bringing up the rear. He tosses the
shotgun to me first, and I snag it out of the air one-handed.

“Okay,” I say once Charlie steps down. “You’re the expert, Zev. How well do you know
these tunnels?”

“Oh, pretty damn well,” he says. “Mrs. Johnson took me here on many a dreary afternoon.
Gave her a real thrill to do it below the grocery store or post office, thinking about
everyone going about their business with no clue what was happening right under their
feet.…”

“So where do we look for the Gallowsman?”

He chuckles. “Follow me.”

He doesn’t wait for any further questions, just struts along the tunnel as confidently
as an usher in a darkened theater. If this
were
a horror movie, he’d be the wise-ass who dies halfway through cracking an offensive
joke, a role that otherwise might have been played by me.

Makes me glad he’s the one in the lead.

We have to hurry to catch up with him. “How about a little more information?” I hiss.

“What, and ruin the surprise?” He doesn’t turn around, but I can hear the grin in
his voice. “Just chill out, okay? You’re in good hands.”

“I’d prefer your hands where I can see them,” I mutter, but there’s not much more
I can do at this point other than trust him. I don’t, but I do have a shotgun pointed
at his back, which is the next best thing.

He takes the tunnel that goes left, then another that forks right, then another right.
He seems supremely confident of where he’s going, never hesitating or slowing down.
I keep expecting iron spikes to shoot out of the wall and impale him, but nothing
like that happens.

We come to an intersection with shafts branching off in three directions, and he finally
stops. Looks around, plays the beam of his flashlight down one way, then another.
“Hmmmm. Okay, I’m pretty sure it’s this way.” He leads us ten feet or so down the
center tunnel, then stops. Looks up at the roof. “Damn. Okay, just stay here for a
second, I need to check something.…

He pushes past us and back into the intersection.

His flashlight goes out.

“Zev?” I call. “You all right?”

No answer. Of course not. This is the part of the movie where the wise-ass decides
it would be funny to pretend the killer got him, and then jumps out from the shadows
and makes everyone scream.

Then again, these days directors like to play with your expectations. It’s just as
likely that his severed head will suddenly drop into our laps, or even that he’ll
pull his little joke and then get chopped to pieces a second later. Whatever it takes
to make the audience jump—

Sally screams.

I spin around. Sally’s eyes are wide and terrified, and she’s pointing farther down
the tunnel. “I saw it! I saw its
eyes
!”

I shine my beam in that direction, but there’s nothing there now. “Charlie? Doctor
Pete? You see anything?”

“Thought I saw a flash of red,” Charlie says.

“No,” says Doctor Pete. “Yellow. Definitely yellow.”

“It was both,” Sally whispers. “Two glowing eyes—one red, one yellow.”

There’s a moment of silence while we digest that, and then I hear the chuckle. Zev’s
chuckle, coming from somewhere ahead—he must have gone up another tunnel and doubled
back. “Red and yellow,” he says, his mocking voice echoing off the stone walls. “But
no green and no go. Stop dead or stand and yield.”

“Uh-oh,” Charlie says.

“Y’think?” I snap.

“Oh, this is going to be
so
much fun,” Zev says. “
My
turn for a little roughhousing, right? Let’s see: My former best friend threw me
around and gave me a nasty little pinch, but Ms. Valchek elbowed me in the face. Charlie’s
thrown me out of his bar on more than one occasion. Which should it be, I wonder?”

There’s a dull crack, like wood breaking, right beside me. Sally crumples to the ground.
I swing the light in the other direction, but Zev’s already gone.

Doctor Pete’s kneeling beside her. Blood spreads in an ever-widening pool under her
head, and her eyes are wide open. He looks for a pulse but I can tell he isn’t having
any luck.

She’s dead.

NINETEEN

I bend down and turn Sally’s head to the side. There’s a large, ugly hole in the back
of her skull, and something perfectly round with a little nub in the center is barely
visible under the welling blood.

“Assault with a battery!”
Zev crows, somewhere in the darkness. “Didn’t see
that
coming, did you?”

“No,” I say. “I must have missed that movie.”

I fire the shotgun down the tunnel. I don’t have a prayer of hitting him, but I need
to make him hesitate while we get around a corner to cover. On the world of Thropirelem,
thrown weapons—spears, knives, ball-bearings—dominate, largely because supernatural
strength and accuracy can turn almost any projectile deadly. Zev’s just demonstrated
that with an Energizer D-cell … but the question now is, which kind of supernatural
being are we facing?

And why the hell did I trust him in the first place?

I motion to Terrance and Charlie, and we sprint up the tunnel in the opposite direction
of the battery’s trajectory. We duck to the left, up another shaft, then around a
corner to the right. I know we don’t have a prayer of outrunning or losing Zev—pire
or thrope, he knows these tunnels and can see in the dark regardless—but I need a
moment’s respite to just
think.

We flatten ourselves against the wall. “What the hell
is
he?” Doctor Pete hisses.

“Good question,” I hiss back. “Shut up and let me figure it out, okay?”

There are two main kinds of spell woven through this town: illusion and memory. One
screws with my perception, the other with my mind. But the memory spells are like
deadfalls: A big chunk of information is held back until I stumble over the tripwire,
and then I get clobbered by a cascade of information.

And they’re set up that way for a reason. Maximum torment. I don’t remember an ally
until they die, because that’s what hurts the most. And I don’t remember an enemy
until they have me at their nonexistent mercy, because that produces the most terror.