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Secret of the Corpse Eater

Page 25

by Ty Drago


  That’s when Lindsay stepped smoothly between us. “I’m afraid these pages have other duties right now, young man.”

  Lex recognized her; he was way too much of a Capitol Hill geek not to. His eyes went so wide that I got ready to catch them if they popped out of his head. His bottom lip trembled.

  Then he kind of squeaked.

  The Lex Burnicky “Holy Crap Factor”!

  “Step aside,” Lindsay commanded.

  Lex stepped aside.

  “As you can see, these two will need fresh page uniforms. We’ll also need some spares.” She ticked off her fingers, working from memory. “Two mediums. One extra-large.”

  “More like extra-extra-large,” Sharyn corrected. “You dudes even got extra-extra-large?”

  Lex gaped at her, then back at the senator. “M—-ma’am?”

  Lindsay said, “It’s a simple question, young man. Do you or don’t you?”

  “I … think so.”

  “And are they here on site?”

  “Y—-yes, Senator.”

  “Excellent. You and I will collect them.” Lindsay faced us, her manner all patient authority, just as we’d rehearsed. “In the meantime, you two should shower and change. We need to be back on the Hill within the hour.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Sharyn and I replied in ridiculous unison.

  Poor Lex looked as if his very world was crumbling.

  “S-senator,” he stammered, “this whole situation is extremely … I mean … the director will —”

  Lindsay hit him with a smile that was so friendly and yet oddly terrifying at the same time that you had to be a politician—or a four-eyed monster—to pull it off. “Alexander. That’s your name, yes?”

  He nodded.

  “Alexander. As I’m sure you’re aware, the Page Program director and I are good friends.” I wondered if this was true. I wondered if it mattered. Lindsay continued, “Now, while I realize these requests are irregular, they are part of an important, rather impromptu effort on Capitol Hill that I don’t have time to explain. I appreciate your position and your dedication to protocol, however. In fact, it strikes me that I could use someone like you in my office. Would such an opportunity be of interest?”

  Lex did the poly-sci grad student version of pumping the air and screaming, “Yes!” He snapped to attention. “Ma’am … it would be an honor!”

  “Yes, it would. Now, let’s conclude this business and, tomorrow, I’d like you to report to my office in the Hart Building. Speak to Moira. Tell her I sent you.”

  If Lex had possessed a tail, it would have been wagging furiously.

  Lindsay gestured toward the staircase. “Shall we?”

  The shower felt great. So did the new clothes. By the time Sharyn and I got back downstairs, Lex and Lindsay were already there, the uniforms we needed neatly packed into four black-leather suit bags.

  “Alexander’s loaning us these from his personal luggage,” Lindsay explained. “Don’t you think that’s accommodating of him?”

  “Yeah,” Sharyn replied. “He’s a peach!”

  “My pleasure, Senator,” the proctor said. If his spine had been any straighter, it would’ve snapped in half. “Um … see you tomorrow?”

  Lindsay politician’s smile faltered, only a little, and only for second or two. “You just talk to Moira,” she told him. “And everything will work out fine.”

  “Thank you,” Lex said, shaking her hand with stiff professionalism. Then, with a look of burning envy directed at Sharyn and myself, he ushered the three of us out the front door and down to the street. “You don’t have a car?”

  “On a beautiful day like this?” Lindsay replied. “Certainly not. We’ll walk.”

  “But those suit bags are heavy. I could call the Hill? Arrange transportation?”

  “No thank you, Alexander. We’ll manage.”

  “But Senator—”

  She gave him another of those smiles. “Really, young man. You’re not going to be this intrusive when you’re working for me, are you?”

  Lex blanched. “No! Of course not. As you say, Senator.”

  And, with that, we headed up the street toward the Capitol. Sharyn carried two of the suit bags. I had the other two. Lex had been right. They were heavy. But we couldn’t risk an official car.

  Not with what I had in mind.

  At this time of day, Union Station buzzed with activity. Even after the long walk, which had left me exhausted, Sharyn exhilarated, and Lindsay looking impatient but otherwise fine, we had to wait more than an hour before the Undertakers’ train showed up.

  Then they came: Jillian, Helene, and the Burgermeister.

  Jillian arrived first, smiling at me, nodding kind of awkwardly at Sharyn—who scowled—and staring like a rock band groupie at Lindsay. “Senator Micha?”

  “Yes indeed, young lady. Have we met?”

  “Not really,” the girl replied. “I’m … I used to be a Senate page. I was the one who found out you’d been …” she stammered, searching for the right word.

  “Replaced?” Lindsay asked helpfully. “Kidnapped? Experimented on?”

  “Yes. I guess so.”

  I barely heard them; my attention was fixed on someone else entirely.

  Helene stood there.

  She looked at me. I looked back at her and, for a second, the world seemed to shrink. It sounds stupid. I mean really stupid. I mean “for the love of God, jump to the next paragraph!” stupid. But it happened, and I’ve been telling this story too long to start skipping stuff now. For just a moment, Union Station vanished. So did my worries about the Corpses, the two—make that three—Lindsay Micha’s, everything.

  Helene and I were alone.

  Then I blinked, and the moment passed.

  Really embarrassing.

  “Um …” she said. “Hi, Will.”

  “Hi,” I croaked.

  “I … missed you.”

  I missed you, too.

  “It was only a week,” I said.

  “I know. I can count days, too,” she replied, but even her sarcasm seemed to have a smile in it—tentative, maybe a little frightened, but a smile.

  “Dude!” Dave said sharply.

  I snapped my head around so fast that it hurt my neck. “What?”

  “I asked if you’re okay.”

  “What? Oh. Sure. You?”

  The Burgermeister laughed. “I just got off a three-hour train ride. You’ve been running around DC, duckin’ deaders!”

  “We’re both cool, Hot Dog,” Sharyn said, eyeing him with her fists on her hips. “So … what? You came here to rescue me or something?”

  “Tom sent me,” he replied defensively. “You know … to help.”

  “Since when do I need help?”

  Dave reddened. “Well … maybe I didn’t mean help you! Maybe I meant help Will!”

  “Maybe you did!”

  “Yeah! Maybe I did!”

  For a long moment, they faced either other down. Sharyn was at least a head and a half shorter and a hundred pounds lighter, but of the two of them she still looked—bigger. Dave fidgeted under her dark gaze.

  But then she laughed and threw her arms around him. “Missed ya, ya big dope.”

  “You’re a dope!” Dave growled, though I could read his grin.

  Helene and I looked at each other. Seconds ticked by.

  “I’m not hugging,” her expression said.

  “Me, neither,” mine said.

  “Are you guys always like this?” Jillian groaned.

  It was Helene who replied, “It’s been a rough week.”

  “Come on,” I said. “We got things to do.”

  “Red’s right,” Sharyn said, shoving Dave away from her.

  We handed the three of them the suit bags. “Girls’ bathroom over there,” Sharyn said, pointing to one end of the concourse. “Boys’ over there. Make it quick.”

  Dave went left. Helene and Jillian went right. Sharyn, Lindsay, and I stood where we were
. Union Station suddenly felt small, uncomfortable, and more than a little awkward.

  “So,” Lindsay said. “Just to be clear: who’s sweet on whom?”

  I opted for an immediate and aggressive change of subject. “Um … Lindsay? Did you mean it when you said you’d give Lex a job?”

  “Believe it or not, William,” she replied, “I don’t say things I don’t mean.” But then her eyes took on an odd, faraway look and her shoulders slumped a little. “Unfortunately, I rather doubt if such a position in my office will be … feasible … by this time tomorrow.”

  “Why’s that?” I asked.

  She didn’t reply.

  Looking back, I wonder if she knew what was coming—if, on some level, Lindsay Micha had somehow glimpsed the future.

  I guess I’ll always wonder.

  Like with Ian.

  “Excuse me, ma’am,” the officer manning the Capitol Visitor Center X-ray machine said. “Has anyone ever told you that you look just like Senator Lindsay Micha?”

  Lindsay smiled and collected the purse she’d just bought from a street vendor about ten minutes ago; it was empty. “Do I? I’m flattered. I’ve always been such an admirer of hers. Do you suppose there’s any chance I might run into her today?”

  “Are you taking the tour?” the police officer asked. He was human. A Corpse Cop would have been on his radio, sounding the alarm. But there were none in sight.

  They’d be in and around the Senate chamber, close to their boss.

  “No,” Lindsay said, holding up a gold ticket, one of the five we’d taken out of Moira’s receptionist desk. “But maybe we’ll get to see her in action!”

  The man laughed. “It’s possible!” Then he waved her through.

  Next went Jillian, then Helene, then the Burgermeister and finally me, my second time through this checkpoint in less than a day. We were all dressed in Senate page outfits: blue pants, white shirt, blue blazer. Dave and I wore ties. For the girls and myself, the fit was pretty okay. But the Burgermeister—well, he looked like a bear in a scuba suit.

  Sharyn wasn’t here.

  The Visitor Center was crowded. Hundreds of tourists pouring in even this late in the afternoon, so one woman and a handful of Senate pages didn’t earn a second glance.

  Except for Lindsay, we all had water pistols, which wouldn’t set off the alarm. In addition, I had my pocketknife. Super Soakers were forbidden—too big. No Ritters or crossbows either.

  “Hardcore under-gunned,” Helene called it.

  Fortunately, if all went well, we wouldn’t need our weapons.

  Once through security, we headed to the south side of the crowded Emancipation Hall, where guides verified our Senate Chamber passes—available at any senator’s office—and ushered us through yet another level of security. This one required that we surrender our cell phones. Jillian and the Burgermeister did so, while Helene told the guards that she didn’t have one.

  Fortunately, nobody searched her.

  After that came a lot of hallways, a lot of guards—all human—and then the final checkpoint, the one right outside the chamber doors.

  Here, Corpses kept watch. Four of them. All early Type Threes. They looked solemn and alert. Spotting them, I stopped us around the final bend in the corridor. This was as far as we’d go—until Sharyn’s signal.

  It came less than a minute later, a barely audible chirp on Helene’s sat phone. The Angel Boss, who’d stationed herself—along with hundreds of others—on the grassy public grounds that lay west of the Capitol, had just sent a one-word text.

  “Green,” Helene said, reading the message.

  The code word meant that C-SPAN, the cable news network that streams live feeds from inside both houses of Congress, had just shown Lindsay Micha and her entourage entering the Senate Chamber.

  “This is it,” I said. “Lindsay … you okay?”

  Lindsay was peeking around the corner, studying the deaders with an expression that could only be called predatory. With a dry gulp, I touched her arm. She turned and, for an instant, those terrifying eyes—flashing red, green, yellow, and blue—fixed on me.

  “Lindsay?” I said again, fighting the urge to run.

  She blinked and her eyes went back to normal. “Of course,” she said. “I mustn’t indulge myself. That’s not the plan. But … oh, Will … I’m so hungry!”

  “Oh, jeez,” Dave muttered.

  I looked at Helene. She had one hand inside her blazer, probably closed around her water pistol, though I doubted if saltwater would even affect the Corpse Eater.

  I shook my head and she relaxed—a little.

  “I know,” I told Lindsay. “But you gotta hang tight. Go off on these dudes, and we’ll scare the Third away.”

  “Mustn’t do that. Must find the Third.” She spoke in that dreamy sort of trance that I hadn’t heard in a while. It’s scared the crap out of me. But we were here, and there was no turning back now.

  Jillian said, “Let’s do this.”

  Helene nodded. “Will, you and the senator sit tight ’til we’re ready.”

  “You sure?” I asked. “There’s four of ’em. More than we figured on.”

  “Don’t sweat it, dude,” Dave told me, slapping my shoulder. “We got this.” Then he and Jillian pasted on smiles and turned the last corner.

  Helene hung back for a second, giving me a worried look.

  “We’re good,” I assured her. Beside me, Lindsay’s eyes were glassy, but her jaw was set. “We’re good,” I repeated, hoping it was true.

  The three “pages” approached the checkpoint. At the sight of them, the Corpses’ bloated purple faces registered immediate suspicion. These guys were pretty far along, decomposition wise—bloated and dripping with fluids. When they moved, hairs fluttered off their rotting scalps while, around them, spring flies feasted and laid eggs in their flesh.

  Jillian, the newest Undertaker, looked a little shaky.

  But the rest had seen it all before.

  “Hi,” Helene said, smiling. “We’ve got a little time off and wanted to check out the chamber.”

  The nearest deader, who looked like he was in charge, eyed the girl before shrugging. Then he looked at Dave. “You don’t fit in that jacket too well.”

  “Yeah,” the Burgermeister grumbled. “Tell me somethin’ I don’t know.”

  “What?” Another Corpse laughed, a sickening, throaty sound, like someone choking a bullfrog. Okay, that’s just weird—how would I know what a choked bullfrog sounds like? But you get the idea. “They don’t make page uniforms in Jolly Green Giant size?”

  “Belts off. All of you,” a third one said. “Regulations.”

  They obeyed, all the while moving slowly away from one another, taking up positions. Three-on-four was long odds, especially given the weapons they carried—and, as Lindsay and I watched from around the corner, I felt my stomach knot up.

  I hated not being in the action. But, right now, that wasn’t my role.

  Jillian dropped her belt into a plastic bin. The others did the same. Then Helene ran one hand through her hair, the movement appearing absent and natural.

  Now!

  Lindsay and I stepped into view. “Yoo-hoo!” the senator called, waving. “Have you boys seen anybody around lately who looks like me?”

  The Corpses froze, staring at us. As we’d hoped, the sight of Lindsay Micha, knowing who—and what—she was put them momentarily off their guard.

  “Abomination!” one of them exclaimed.

  Helene and Jillian both drew their pistols and fired into the faces of their respective deaders. At the same instant Dave drove a ham-sized fist into a third Corpse’s face, the blow so hard that his whole hand disappeared into the dude’s rotting skull. The body stiffened and started twitching.

  “That’s for the Jolly Green Giant crack!” he said as the dude fell.

  Then he seized the sides of the boss Deader’s head and delivered a single, hard twist. I heard the spine snap.

&
nbsp; Two down, I thought. But I kept my eye on Lindsay, who watched the combat with an almost-childlike envy.

  If she changed now, we were hosed.

  Helene delivered a wheel kick to the deader she’d just squirted. The guy, already blind and off-balance, went down like a sack of sand, his neck broken. Beside her, the one that Jillian had shot convulsed and staggered forward, failing its arms and knocking the girl upside the head.

  With a cry, Jillian hit the carpet.

  Suddenly, my pocketknife was in Helene’s hand—another reluctant loan. Vaulting over the faceless Corpse she’d just dropped, the girl slammed the blade into the back of the last deader’s skull, so deep that she almost took the dude’s head off.

  Game Over. Ten seconds, maybe less.

  “Wonderful,” Lindsay muttered in a dreamy voice. “Just wonderful.”

  “Come on,” I said, leading her toward the others as Helene helped Jillian to her feet. “Nice job,” I told them.

  Of course, the telepathic alarm was already going out. We could only hope Micha wouldn’t be chased off.

  “Clumsy,” Jillian said, the makings of a nasty bruise forming on her cheek. “I let him hit me.”

  “Won’t be the last time,” Helene replied. “Believe me.”

  “Don’t forget your belts, children,” Lindsay said. “It’s important to look your best.”

  When we were all ready, Dave opened the chamber door. As before, Lindsay and I held back—also part of the plan. Helene paused at the threshold, once again giving me a quick, worried look.

  “I’m cool,” I said, keeping my voice just above a whisper.

  “I know,” she replied.

  Then she let the door shut.

  Time to count to sixty.

  “She cares for you,” Lindsay said.

  I shifted uncomfortably, but didn’t reply.

  “It’s nothing to be embarrassed about.”

  “I know,” I said, though I knew no such thing.

  “You should speak to your mother about it.”

  “No, thanks.”

  “She could help you understand what you’re feeling. Helene’s a lovely girl, by the way.”

  Again, I said nothing. This was the last thing I wanted to be talking about. But, as always with grown-ups, Lindsay wouldn’t drop it.

 

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