It only took a few more scoops to uncover a gasping, crying Marisol. Together they freed Cory from the shallow pile of grave dirt covering him.
“I can’t do this. I can’t go any further,” Marisol said.
John heard the tears in her voice, knew he was one more scare from breaking down himself. The only thing that kept him from suggesting they turn around and go back was the knowledge that they’d all think of him as a coward. The pussy who wouldn’t save his friend.
But if Cory suggests it... That hope died before he even finished the thought.
“We can’t go back,” Cory said, his voice raspy from the foul air and dirt he’d swallowed. “Todd needs us.”
In the darkness, John heard Marisol take a whimpering breath. When she spoke, some of her old spunk had returned.
“Okay. For Todd. But let’s hurry, before I crap my pants.”
Cory let out a weak laugh. “Down here, who’d smell it anyway? Take my hand. John, take her other hand.”
Warm flesh touched his arm, slid down to his palm. He clutched at it.
Unbelievable. He says jump and she asks how high. And yet neither one of them will admit their feelings for each other.
Marisol’s grip tugged his and he realized they were moving forward. As they walked, he kept his free hand against the tunnel wall and hunched himself over as much as he could. Even then, dangling roots still grabbed at his hair and tapped against his forehead, each encounter frightening him anew with visions of groping corpse-fingers.
After thirty or so feet, the tunnel opened up enough for them to stand upright. It widened as well, so much so that he was able to stretch his arms out and barely touch the walls.
“I think I see light,” Cory said, and at the same time John noticed he could see Marisol’s shape in front of him. A few steps later and they could all make out a strong, flickering glow coming from ahead of them.
“It looks like the tunnel turns up there,” Marisol said.
“Do you think that’s Todd’s flashlight?” John asked.
“No.” Cory’s voice held a note of uncertainty. “It looks more like a candle or maybe a whole bunch of them. C’mon.”
Still holding hands, they made their way around the bend and then stopped, stunned by the scene before them.
Like some apocalyptic preacher, Todd stood in the center of a small cavern, holding a large jar of Holy water in one hand while with his other he flicked the blessed liquid at the creatures surrounding him. Each time droplets hit one of the floating monsters, tiny explosions of bright white light resulted, and the creature would back away.
Jesus Christ, they really are aliens! John’s mind screamed as he took in their evil, over-sized eyes and tiny limbs. It was the closest they’d been to the creatures since catching sight of one in the cemetery.
Marisol screamed and pointed at something on the other side of the cave. From another tunnel, more shapes were moving towards them, only they weren’t Grays.
With a shaking hand, John pulled his father’s pistol from his pocket.
The zombies had arrived.
* * *
Present Day
“John? John!”
Cory looked at the others, unsure of what to do. John had taken one step into the crypt and collapsed.
“Do we keep going without him?”
Marisol’s question was the same one he’d been asking himself. He hated the thought of leaving John at the mercy of anything that came along. But if one of them remained behind to guard him, the other two would be severely outnumbered in the tunnels.
“I don’t think—” Todd began, but just then John let out a low moan and opened his eyes.
“What...what happened?”
“You passed out on us. How do you feel?” Todd asked.
“I’m okay.” John held out his hand and Cory took it, helped him up. To his credit, John didn’t seem unsteady on his feet.
Marisol stepped forward. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
“Yeah. That was weird. I remember stepping inside and then, boom! It was like I went back in time, to when...the first time we went down there.”
Cory put his hand on John’s shoulder. “Can you handle going down there again?”
John slapped Cory’s hand away. “I can handle it. I’m not a pussy.”
Taken aback by the vehemence of John’s reaction, Cory stepped away. “Relax. I didn’t say you were. But we can’t have you passing out once we’re in the tunnel.”
“I’ll be fine. You just watch out for yourself and don’t worry about me.” Before anyone could stop him, John pushed past them and descended into the hole.
Cory looked at Todd and Marisol. “Was it something I said?”
Todd shook his head. “We’re all scared but John is terrified. He’s putting up a brave front but he’s been having nightmares. I’ve heard him moaning at night, even shouting in his sleep. I think he’s been suffering from them long before this all started up again.”
“Shit.” Cory hitched his pack up on his shoulder. “Well, then I guess we’d better not leave him alone down there. Ready?”
“Ready as I’ll ever be.” Todd walked past and climbed into the hole.
Marisol started after him, and Cory stopped her.
“What—?”
He cut off her question with a long, hard kiss that ended up more desperate than he’d intended.
“Just in case,” he said, as they separated.
“There’s no just in case.” She looked him in the eye. “You promised.”
Then she was gone, following Todd into the darkness.
Chapter 2
On the corner of Elm and Maple, three figures paused in the act of devouring an elderly man they’d attacked as he took out his garbage.
At the Bayside Marina, a massacre was avoided when the group of dead-looking people who had just crashed through the front window of the banquet hall suddenly froze in place, enabling all the guests gathered for Tim Henderson’s fiftieth birthday party to escape.
In Griffith Park, a young couple narrowly escaped death when the four men chasing them stopped dead still on the path.
All across and beneath the town of Rocky Point, the Horde halted what it was doing as something registered on its consciousness.
In the tunnels.
Coming.
Too soon. Stop them.
Protect.
Summoned by its own command, the Horde began moving towards the cemetery.
And Wood Hill Sanitarium.
* * *
Cory had expected the tunnel to be smaller than he remembered it - the same way the hallways of your old elementary school always seemed smaller when you went back to visit. After all, it had seemed narrow and claustrophobic at the time and they’d only been teenagers.
Instead, the tunnel was both wider and taller, making him think that the zombie-things had been pretty busy clearing it out.
Either that, or there are a lot more of them than we thought.
They caught up with John right around the same place where the tunnel had widened the last time. He’d stopped and was casting his flashlight around, illuminating the dark earth. Although further away, roots still protruded from the ceiling and walls, grayish fingers and tendrils that Cory half-expected to wriggle free and grab them.
By unspoken agreement, they started forward in the same order as last time, with Todd going first followed by Cory, Marisol and John. When they reached the point where the tunnel turned, Cory whispered for them to turn off their lights so they wouldn’t give their presence away. The resulting blackness caused him to shiver and his body jerked slightly when a groping hand found his in the dark. Marisol’s. He reached out with his other one and found Todd’s waiting for him.
Creeping forward in the lightless void was more of an ordeal than Cory expected. Every sound seemed simultaneously muffled and magnified, with no way of telling the point of origination. Someone whimpered, either Marisol or John, he couldn’t b
e sure. At least, he hoped it was one of them. Did zombies whimper? Was it anxious hunger for human flesh he’d heard rather than human fear?
Just keep walking. Nothing is behind us.
The muted crunch of dirt beneath their feet filled Cory’s ears, along with the bellowing sound of everyone breathing in the small space. He heard his own lungs wheezing slightly as they struggled with the dual assaults of dust-and-dirt filled air and the foul stench of rotted flesh that seemed to grow worse with each step. He wished he’d brought a handkerchief or bandana to cover his face.
How could anything smell this bad?
Something tickled down his neck and beneath his shirt, and he fought the urge to slap at it, afraid of losing Todd or Marisol if he let go. He told himself it was only a piece of dirt falling from the ceiling but his already over-active imagination created images of ants and beetles skittering above and around them, dropping down onto heads and shoulders.
Nipping with their little pincers and claws.
He felt a scream forming in his throat and forced it down.
Without warning, he bumped into Todd’s back and this time he had to clamp his teeth shut to keep from crying out. Then Marisol walked into him in the dark. She emitted a short squeak of terror and John gasped.
“What—?”
“Shh,” Todd whispered. “The cavern.”
He didn’t have to say more. An involuntary shiver ran through Cory. They’d reached the cavern, the place where twenty years earlier they’d had their showdown with the monsters. Cory tried to remember what had happened but his mind refused to go back, leaving him with only half-seen images of Todd throwing Holy water and John shooting...something.
“Cory. Cory. Are you ready?”
Todd’s voice. Cory nodded, remembered no one could see him. “Yes.”
“Okay. Just like we planned. Cory and I go left, Marisol and John right. On three. One...two...three!”
Cory moved to his left and turned on his flashlight. Around him, the others turned theirs on as well as they took their positions. The sudden light blinded him momentarily and he cursed his own stupidity for not shielding his eyes. He peered through the haze of colored spots, searching for any immediate threats. When nothing presented itself, he stepped forward.
His foot encountered something soft and wet and he recoiled. Immediately a horrible odor, so rancid it made his stomach churn, filled his nose.
Marisol screamed.
Cory shined his light at her and then almost dropped it when he saw the corpse on the ground in front of her, as bloated and rotten as the one he’d stepped on. As the others played their lights around, he grasped the enormity of what they’d stumbled into.
Dozens of bodies littered the cavern, some in various states of decomposition, more of them nothing but bones and gristle inside tatters of cloth.
All of them looked like they’d been meals.
Forgetting their plan to spread out, Cory ran to Marisol and wrapped his arms around her. “It’s okay,” he whispered. “It’s okay.” She clutched at him, making her flashlight beam dance across the walls and floor.
Todd joined them and John came over a second later.
“Look. Over there.”
Cory followed Todd’s flashlight beam. Across the cavern was a darker shape against the earthen wall.
“Another tunnel.”
Todd nodded. “I’ll bet it leads to the old asylum.”
Cory started to move his flashlight away then paused.
Was that movement in the tunnel? Just the quickest of flickers, something gray back in the depths. He brought the light back up. Definite movement, too far back to see what it was.
“Guys, there’s something in that tunnel.” Even as he spoke, the shape moved again, closer now. Close enough to see what it was.
A zombie.
With more behind it.
“Shit!” They’d come prepared more for Grays than zombies. Had Holy water worked against them the last time? He couldn’t remember. His memories of that fight were still shrouded in fog.
“We’ve got a problem here, too,” John said.
Cory turned around. Back in the tunnel they’d just left, just coming around the last bend, were more zombies.
“Into the center!” Todd shouted. They followed him, no longer caring about the dead, putrefying bodies underfoot, terrified of becoming another meal for the undead.
“Backs together,” Cory said. They grouped shoulder to shoulder, two facing each tunnel. Cory caught a whiff of something summer-sweet in the midst of the death-smell. He looked to the side for a second, saw Marisol next to him, her squirt gun already in hand.
Instead of Holy water, Cory opted for one of the three-foot pieces of PVC pipe he’d snagged from Todd’s garage. Each of them carried one. If the Holy water didn’t work, at least they’d have weapons to defend themselves with.
Weapons. The last time we were here John had a gun. His father’s gun. He remembered that much; remembered the sound of the gun as John fired it.
Dammit! Why can’t I remember it all?
Although he had no idea what, he was sure there was something about that night that was important, something that could help them.
“I’ve got about fifteen on this side,” Todd said from behind him. Cory peered at the tunnel, trying to count the dim shapes emerging from the darkness. Ten? Twenty? It didn’t matter. They were badly outnumbered no matter what.
“At least that many here,” he said.
The zombies moved forward slowly but easily, their lack of speed seemingly more due to caution than dexterity problems. Cory raised his pipe and braced himself for a fight. If these monsters were anything like the ones who’d attacked Marisol or Todd and John, they’d be as fast and strong as living people. Maybe stronger, since they didn’t feel pain.
“Get ready,” he told the others. “Shoot them as soon as they’re in range.”
The first zombies stepped out of the tunnel and began closing the distance to their prey. They paid no attention to the dead bodies they stepped on, marching forward with a singular purpose.
To kill us.
At a distance of ten feet away, they stopped. Illuminated by the flashlight beams, their slack faces were portraits of death, ashen, mottled flesh that looked like boiled pork. Several of them had pieces of skin hanging from where it had been cut or simply started to rot.
Cory was shocked to see women and children among the undead. Which only makes it harder to kill them, he thought. How do you slam a piece of pipe into a grade-schooler’s skull? A child who just a day or two ago was someone’s son or daughter?
As if reading his mind, a young boy took a single step forward.
“What should I do?” whispered Marisol.
The boy bared his teeth and growled.
“Shoot it,” Cory said.
Holding the squirt rifle in two hands, flashlight braced under the nozzle, she aimed and fired at the child. Cory couldn’t see the line of water, but he saw it splash across the boy’s face and chest.
Nothing happened.
“It doesn’t work,” Marisol said.
The boy growled again and charged forward, his hands held out, fingers curved into claws.
Cory swung his pipe, a direct shot to the forehead that split the child’s skull open with a horrendous, wet crack. The boy collapsed to the floor. A second later a dark-gray shape, ghostly and twisted, poured out of the boy’s mouth.
“Shit! Shoot it, shoot it!” he cried, remembering how Todd had been able to kill the gray things with his Holy water. Marisol pulled the trigger and white light, brighter than all their flashlights together, exploded as the water hit the beast.
“What the hell was that?” John asked.
“The Holy water. It only works on the Grays, not the zombies. But killing the zombie releases the thing inside.”
“We have to kill both or the demon will just find another host,” Todd said.
“Yeah, like us.” John’s voice
cracked but he kept his position.
“We are fucked,” Marisol said as the remaining zombies all took a step forward in unison.
Cory raised his pipe. “I’ll take care of the bodies, you take care of the Grays.” In his mind, he knew she was right. They didn’t stand a chance. He glanced at her, found her staring back at him. Saw the truth in her eyes.
They were going to die.
At that moment, the zombies charged.
Cory managed two swings with the pipe before they overpowered him. Hands grabbed at him, nails clawed at his clothes. He heard the others shouting. Something hit him from behind, knocking him to his knees. His flashlight fell. A reeking body tackled him and he ended up on his back. He brought the pipe up just in time to stop the dead woman’s teeth from biting his face. Holding the pipe sideways against her throat, he pushed upward with all his strength, barely managing to keep her away. Waves of filthy, rank, dead breath poured out of her mouth and he struggled to inhale. Something bit into his thigh and coarse fingernails scraped the back of his neck.
Marisol screamed for help. He couldn’t see her, couldn’t even turn his head. More weight piled on him and the zombie’s gnashing jaws drew closer. He knew he wouldn’t be able to hold the thing off much longer. He cursed John for suggesting they enter the pit, cursed himself for listening. Cursed Todd for bringing that damned Ouija board in the first place.
His arms quivered, the muscles starting to cramp. He had no more strength left. He closed his eyes.
“Marisol! I love you!” he shouted, hoping she would hear him.
Something exploded nearby and he wondered if the cave was collapsing around them. Another explosion followed, then another and suddenly the weight on him was gone. He opened his eyes and instead of a dead face saw darkness broken by strobe lights. Another explosion, this one louder, almost deafening. He recognized the sounds as gunshots.
None of us brought guns.
Cory rose to his knees, looked around the cave. The light came from Marisol and John’s flashlights. They were standing by the tunnel they’d entered, flanking someone - Chief Travers? - who was methodically aiming at and shooting zombies.
Cemetery Club Page 22
