They got out, and Brent drew his gun. Travis tossed him a sheathed Ka-Bar, which Brent caught one-handed and strapped to his belt. Travis withdrew a shotgun and a machete. Derek shook his head when Travis offered another shotgun and turned his hands palms up.
“I’ve got what I need right here,” Derek replied. “How about I wander around in the graveyard, and you guys have my back? I get a little distracted when I go with the flow.”
Brent and Travis fanned out, one on each side, trailing behind Derek as he strode toward the cemetery. Up close, Brent could see that both the church and its surroundings looked untended. The wooden siding was chalky, long past the need for fresh paint, and rot claimed some of the moldings around the doorway. In several places loose bricks tumbled down from the graveyard wall, leaving gaps and crumbling mortar. Tall grass around the headstones hadn’t been cut in a while, and some of the markers were broken or vandalized.
“Off-hand, I’d say the congregation hasn’t been paying much attention,” Brent murmured.
“Probably down to a handful of retirees, mostly women,” Travis replied. “Happens a lot.”
The wind rattled through the branches of the woods just beyond and sent a chill down Brent’s back. Derek walked forward slowly, eyes open but glassy as if he had tuned into a different reality.
“Picking up any chatter on the Dead Channel?” Brent asked.
Travis grimaced at the nickname. “Chatter? No. But uneasiness? Yeah. I’m sure all these folks had lovely funerals, but that doesn’t mean people go gently to wherever they’re headed next.”
Derek climbed through a broken place in the low brick wall rather than fumbling with the wrought iron gate. Brent and Derek followed at a cautious distance, weapons ready.
“Either they’ve got grave robbers, or some of their dead parishioners woke up from their dirt nap,” Brent remarked, noting the messy excavations in front of several markers.
“But not everyone,” Travis mused. Both Brent and Travis had their guns raised, scanning for trouble, either living or undead. “So what made some of them special?”
Brent stared out across the small churchyard. Unlike the big Pittsburgh cemeteries filled with obelisks and angel statues, the headstones were modest and unremarkable. Brent had visited famous graveyards elsewhere that boasted gardens and beautiful landscaping, but this small plot felt desolate and forlorn, without even shade trees to soften the rows of tombstones.
Some of the markers were limestone, badly weathered with the years, nearly illegible. Most of the others were gray granite, probably the least expensive available. Several looked newer than the rest, and it was in front of those that fresh dirt formed mounds where the zombies had clawed themselves free.
“It’s the recent dead,” Brent said quietly.
“Yeah. I noticed that. Maybe because they still have people to mourn them?” Travis suggested.
Derek stopped abruptly and shook himself out of his trance.
“Well?” Brent asked, hearing an edge in his voice from the tension. He didn’t care for role-playing The Walking Dead , waiting to be surprised either by the local cops or hungry shamblers.
“The energy that raised them isn’t anything like my magic,” Derek replied. “I think the bodies were reanimated against their will. The power feels sullied. No, I’ll go farther than that. Not just dirty…evil.” He met Travis’s gaze. “At the risk of sounding Biblical, I’d even say infernal.”
“Demons again,” Brent groaned.
Travis didn’t look surprised. “The ghosts are afraid,” he said. “Especially those outside the wall.”
“What the fuck?” Brent felt his temper rise. “I thought that kind of thing only happened in movies.” Burying non-believers, criminals, and stigmatized others outside the churchyard walls, beyond “sanctified ground,” used to be common. Some thought it doomed the souls to wander, denying them eternal rest. Brent had always thought it sounded like petty bullshit.
“I don’t think that’s been done for quite some time, generations maybe, but Milesburg is an old town, and ghosts have long memories,” Travis said. “They don’t know what raised the dead, but they saw them rise, and they were afraid whatever power commanded the corpses could take them as well.”
“They were right to be afraid,” Derek replied. “I don’t think anything human channeled that energy. So the question becomes—why them, and why here?”
“Benjamin said there were other churches on this stretch. Let’s see whether they have the same problem,” Travis suggested.
Two other small churches stood in lonely isolation along the highway between Milesburg and the state game lands. One appeared to be abandoned. None of its dead rose. The other, a small brick building that seemed slightly better cared for than the first church, had even more missing bodies. They made the same sweep, and Derek reported feeling similar dark power in the cemetery with the risen dead, but not in the undisturbed burying ground.
“No one might have noticed the dead rising during the week,” Derek said, “but come Sunday, I’m betting it will be a topic of conversation.”
“No one rose in the third churchyard,” Brent pointed out. “Why?”
“And in the first cemetery, all of the newly buried people rose, while the ones who had been dead longer didn’t,” Derek mused. “But here, there are a couple of new headstones with recent deaths who didn’t rise.”
Brent bent down to examine one of those undisturbed graves. “The man who was buried here was ninety-six.” He walked a few paces over to another new marker whose “resident” remained below. “And a lady who was ninety-two.”
Trent seemed to catch his drift. “So maybe there was no one left to grieve them.”
Brent nodded. “It would make sense if you’re right about the Silverado abductions. Whatever’s behind this is picking its targets to make the biggest emotional impact. A child goes missing. A teenager everyone liked. A young woman who didn’t seem to have an enemy in the world.” He swept one hand in a gesture to indicate the cemeteries. “And now, zombies where the loss is recent and the grief is fresh for families who are going to be out of their minds about the graves being desecrated.”
“If they think the graves are bad, wait until they meet up with their loved ones looking a little worse for the wear,” Derek muttered.
“So there were five from the first cemetery, none from the second, and six here,” Brent said. “And from the dates on the headstones, seven of those were older adults, and four were between sixteen and thirty.”
“Which holds with the theory about wanting to upset the surviving family members,” Derek added.
“Do you think we’ve found all of them?” Brent asked.
Travis frowned. “Benjamin said something about a mortuary that went out of business.”
“Oh, shit,” Derek said, looking pale. “I totally forgot about that. Randall Funeral Home was in the news a month ago when it shut down without warning. Turns out that their crematory stopped working, and they didn’t tell anyone. Some bodies only got partially cremated, others just got stored in freezers, and the families got a box of sand instead of ashes. Then the power went out.”
“Fuck. What happened?” Brent asked.
“Families had started to get suspicious. The cops got a warrant, and found bodies in shallow graves, or stacked in a walk-in freezer. The owner committed suicide, the employees went to jail, and every forensic lab in six counties got called in to match dental records to badly decomposed remains.” Derek grimaced as he recalled the horror.
“Let’s go have a look at the funeral home,” Travis said. Derek got into the car first. Travis stowed his gun under the front seat, and Brent covered them until Travis was settled and the car was running before he got in, too.
Randall’s still showed up on the GPS, a short drive from the last church. The sprawling old home had been grand once before it was converted to a mortuary and fell into disgrace. The police tape was gone, but orange temporary construc
tion fencing had been staked out along the perimeter of the grounds.
Travis got out of the car, and stumbled, catching himself against the chassis.
“You okay?” Brent asked.
Travis nodded. “Yeah. It’s just, the impressions are pretty strong.” A sudden gust of wind whipped by them, bending the tall grass and rustling the dry leaves in the trees. Brent felt gooseflesh prickle along his arms and at the back of his neck.
“I’m not sensing any of the undead,” Derek said. “Just some restless, angry ghosts.”
“Dangerous?” Brent had his gun in hand, but he knew an iron rod would do him more good if they were going to deal with vengeful spirits.
Travis and Derek shook their heads. “Angry for being mistreated, and for the heartache it caused their families,” Travis relayed.
“Grief again,” Brent noted. “Finding out that the funeral director stole your money and botched your loved one’s send-off would be like losing them all over again.”
Derek nodded. “I think you’re onto something there. If the police confiscated the remains, there wouldn’t be any bodies left here to turn into zombies, but I can feel the same energy imprint as I did at the graveyards. This isn’t a dark witch, messing around. It’s something old and powerful—and evil.”
Brent could see where backhoes and excavating equipment had torn up the lawn behind the building. The air felt heavy, like a storm was brewing. Pressure behind his eyes gave him a pounding headache, and it felt difficult to breathe. The nearby woods were too silent, as if even the birds and forest animals had fled. Every primal instinct told him to run.
“I want to say Last Rites, and send the spirits here on to their rest,” Travis said. “That leaves less unsettled energy for anything bad to draw on, and it’s the decent thing to do.”
Travis moved up to the fence and began the litany, while Brent and Derek remained at a respectful distance, watching for danger. Gradually, the air around them felt less oppressive, and Brent’s headache eased, as did the sense of disquiet. Perhaps it was his imagination, but the sky seemed to brighten, and by the time Travis finished his prayers, Brent heard birdsong and the rustle of small animals in the brush.
“Whatever raised the zombies didn’t exactly conjure up an army,” Derek noted. “So what’s the point?”
Travis led the way back to the Crown Vic. “Terror and grief. They aren’t supposed to attack the town. They’re supposed to get spotted and vanish, keeping everyone keyed up, not letting their loved ones let go and move on.” He started the car as they got in. “Let’s go back to where the drivers thought they saw the zombies. Maybe we’ll find something there.”
They drove in silence, each man lost in thought. Brent couldn’t help reliving the awful memories of the viewing and funerals for his parents and Danny. None of them had been open casket, not with what the demon left behind. He’d identified the bodies, to spare his grandfather who had a weak heart. No amount of alcohol would ever wash the images from Brent’s memories. The cops claimed it was a serial killer, but years later, after he’d encountered Mavet, Brent had figured out the truth.
Don’t make it personal, Brent warned himself. He knew it was already too late. While he’d managed to keep his objectivity on regular cases as a cop or a Fed, demon hunting bordered on being a vigilante obsession. Every monster he killed was a hollow victory, and while it protected someone else’s family, it would never return his own.
A glance at Derek yielded no insights; his expression was shuttered and unreadable, though the tense way he sat, leaning forward, suggested he was ready for a fight. Travis radiated anger in the white-knuckled clench of his fingers around the steering wheel and the set of his shoulders. Perhaps he felt the sacrilege even more strongly since he did not seem to have left as much of the priesthood behind as he claimed.
Travis pulled off on the shoulder. “There’ve been five sightings, all in this half-mile stretch. Seems like a good place to start.”
Brent got out first, with a gun in one hand and his Ka-Bar in the other. Travis came around to stand on the same side of the car, holding his shotgun. Derek stood between them, unarmed except for his magic.
Travis turned to take in their surroundings, making a slow circle with his shotgun held at the ready. “They’re out there,” he said quietly. “In the forest.”
Derek nodded. “I sense them, too. It’s almost like they’ve been…deactivated. I’m not sure they can move on their own. I think they’re being controlled.”
Travis racked his shells, ready for a fight. “Can you locate them? If they aren’t going to come to us, maybe we can take the battle to them and put a stop to this.”
Derek’s eyes widened, just as the sound rose of something crashing through the underbrush. “Shit. They’re awake, and they’re headed this way.”
Seconds later, the smell of rotting flesh filled the air. Shadowy forms careened toward them, moving quickly but with the coordination of a drunkard.
“Great. Fast zombies,” Brent muttered.
“Can you stop them with magic?” Travis glanced at Derek, gripping his machete as tightly as his gun.
“Gonna try,” Derek assured them. “Cover me.” He stretched out one arm, hand open and palm out, then closed his eyes, and while his lips moved, he did not speak aloud.
The two zombies in the lead were close enough for Brent to see their bloated, discolored faces. Two old men, still wearing their Sunday best suits, stumbling forward like they were running downhill, unable to stop. Brent had no idea what the zombies intended to do when they reached the road, but he did not want to find out. He raised his Glock, but Travis put a hand on his arm.
“Give Derek a moment.”
Brent held his fire but did not lower his arm.
Derek gave a shout and clenched his fist. The front two zombies fell to their knees, and the closest of their companions fell over them. It might have been funny, if the zombies hadn’t gotten back up again, fixed on their objective.
“The power that raised them isn’t magic,” Derek cried out, eyes wide with panic. “I can’t stop them.”
“Then blowing them to bits won’t stop them, either, but it might slow them down,” Travis said, handing off his shotgun to Derek. “Start shooting, and I’ll try the exorcism.”
Brent and Derek opened fire. The zombies might be moving at a medium jog instead of a slow shamble, but not so fast that it made targeting a problem. There were more of the undead than they had figured from the cemeteries, but not by many. Brent kept count as he shot, and his aim was true, striking in the head or center mass. Travis was right—the bullets sent the zombies reeling and forced them back a few steps, but within seconds they reoriented and started moving forward again with shattered skulls and gaping chest wounds.
“Exorcizamos te ….” Travis began.
Almost with the first words of the litany, the wind shifted, and a clinging cold descended. The feeling that they were in the presence of evil, like back at the mortuary, grew stronger, reminding Brent of that night his squadron survived Mavet. Something wicked and powerful made its presence known. He fought the triggering memories to keep focused on the moment, aiming and firing to buy Travis time.
In the next instant, the zombies collapsed like puppets with cut strings. The oppressive tension in the air vanished, and with it the dark entity that animated the wretched corpses.
“Someone had to have heard that,” Derek said, his voice unsteady.
“Get in the car,” Brent ordered. “Start it up. I’ll be there in a minute or less.” He ran toward the stinking heaps of rotting bodies, drizzling each with a bottle of lighter fluid he pulled from his jacket pocket, then tossing a match to light them like a pyre.
“Are you crazy? You could set the forest on fire!” Derek yelped as Brent threw himself into the front seat and Travis peeled rubber to put distance between themselves and the flames.
“We’ve had plenty of rain, and the cops are going to be here soon,” Bren
t replied, breathing hard. “But if whatever raised those bodies could drop them by leaving, it could start them up again if it came back. Gonna be harder now that they’re fried to a crackly crunch.”
They dropped Derek off at his car, getting back on the road seconds before police cars and fire engines zoomed past them, lights flashing and sirens blaring. Brent did not let out the breath he was holding until they and Derek were on I-80.
“That was—” Brent began.
“Horrific,” Travis finished. He visibly loosened his grip on the wheel and rolled his shoulders to release tension. A glance to the rear view mirror told Brent that the other man expected to see squad cars in pursuit.
“Now what?”
“I’m going to talk to more of my Night Vigil, and then we head back to Cooper City and see if we can figure out how to pull the plug,” Travis said with grim determination. “Because if this is a cycle of some kind, then it’s building to a climax and I really don’t want to see what happens next.”
Chapter Nine
They didn’t make it to Cooper City that day, although they did stop the zombie mini-apocalypse of Milesburg. Brent and Travis agreed to take two days off to handle their other responsibilities—barring a new looming catastrophe—and head east again mid-week.
Twenty-four hours later, Brent’s cold, acrid coffee settled in the pit of his stomach as he sat on a stake-out, waiting for the suspect to make the drop. His client, Preston Energy, Inc., believed one of its engineers was selling confidential information about its natural gas exploration to a competitor. Fracking had turned the previously worthless land into energy goldmines, and the potential profit involved was more than enough to push desperate men to make dangerous choices.
The stake-out left him time on his hands with nothing to do but think, and his thoughts rehashed the trip to Milesburg, and the fight in the diner. Travis and his Night Vigil are the real deal. Danny was right—I can’t handle whatever this is on my own, he thought. After flying solo for so long, working with a partner again was going to take some getting used to. Still, he’s not too bad—for a priest. Ex-priest. Yeah, right. He might not still actually be wearing the collar, but it’s not really gone.
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