The Undertakers

by Ty Drago

  “Will!” Harleen called.

  I waved. “Seen Dave?”

  “He and that Helene girl went back into the arcade,” Ethan reported.

  Beside him, Maria giggled. “I think they like each other.”

  I smiled halfheartedly and headed down the short hall to the video game room. It was empty—except for Dave and Helene.

  The two of them stood close together, the boy towering over the girl. Both were studying a sheet of paper that Helene held in her hands.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  They looked up.

  “Fort Mifflin,” Helene said.

  “I still don’t get it,” Dave complained. “What the hell is Fort Mifflin?”

  Helene shook the paper impatiently. “This is Fort Mifflin!”

  “Well, duh! But what is Fort Mifflin?”

  “Slow down, will you?” I demanded. “What about Fort Mifflin?”

  “That’s where Kenny Booth’s going tomorrow night,” she replied. “That’s where he goes about once a month.”

  “How’d you find out?”

  “It wasn’t easy. Heather wouldn’t tell me a thing, and just try to pry something out of Elisha once Tom’s told her to keep quiet. The thing is, there’s this other Hacker named Justin. I think he…” Helene’s voice trailed off, her face reddening.

  Dave chimed right in. “He kind of likes her!”

  Helene shot him a look that would have melted stone.

  “Yeah?” I said. All of a sudden, I felt strange—almost sick to my stomach. I didn’t know what the feeling was, but I absolutely knew what it wasn’t.

  It wasn’t jealousy.

  No way.

  “He wants to be her boyfriend!” Dave continued cheerfully.

  “Um…so this Justin kid told you that Booth goes to Fort Mifflin?” I asked, starving for a change of subject.

  “Yeah,” Helene said sourly.

  “The old Fort Mifflin?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Dave interrupted, “Will somebody please tell me what the heck Fort Mifflin is?”

  “It’s an old Revolutionary War fort,” I told him. “It’s down near the airport.”

  “And that’s where Booth is going tomorrow night?” asked the Burgermeister.

  Helene nodded. “Around midnight.”

  As it happened, I knew something about Fort Mifflin. It stood south of the city, right on the banks of the Delaware River—a walled fort that once defended Philly against the British. A century later, during the Civil War, it became a military prison. Now it was a museum—one that I’d visited on a class trip. Actually I remembered it as being pretty cool.

  “What does Booth do at Fort Mifflin in the middle of the night?” I wondered aloud.

  Helene replied, “That’s what Tom and Sharyn want to know. The Angels are heading there to keep an eye on the comings and goings.”

  “From inside the walls or outside?” I asked.

  “Outside. A safe distance away—at least according to Justin.”

  “Uh-huh,” I said. I’d expected as much. “So what’s the paper?”

  “A map of the fort,” Dave replied. “Helene’s boyfriend printed it out.”

  She groaned and handed me the sheet.

  It was a color map, pretty rough, labeled with the words Walking Tour of Fort Mifflin. It showed the sharply angled walls of the roughly star-shaped fort encircling a handful of rectangular buildings identified with labels like Artillery Shed, Parade Grounds, and Commandant’s House. The entire compound was surrounded by a genuine moat with just three bridges.

  Booth’ll be there.

  I thought about Kyle and Tara, and that now-familiar anger flared up again inside me.

  And so will I.

  “Thanks, Helene.”

  “Sure,” she replied with an embarrassed shrug.

  I turned to leave.

  “Whoa, dude!” Dave said quickly. “What’s the plan?”

  “I’m going there tomorrow night.”

  “Not without me you’re not!” the Burgermeister insisted.

  “Guys—” Helene stammered. “Wait a minute—”

  “I think I’d better go alone,” I told Dave.

  “Not a chance! You think I want to stay here and scrub toilets? I’ve got to be out there where the action is!”

  “Guys!” Helene exclaimed loud enough to startle us both into attention. “Neither one of you is going anywhere. Tom won’t let you.”

  “I won’t be asking him,” I said.

  At that, Helene’s mouth dropped open.

  Her reaction pissed me off a little—or maybe it was the Justin thing. I snapped, “Well, what did you think I wanted to know this stuff for?”

  “You told me you were just curious!” she replied harshly. “You didn’t say anything about running out there without Tom’s okay!”

  I wasn’t sure how to respond to that. It was true that I’d lied to Helene about why I wanted the Booth info. But I was also pretty sure that she’d known I was lying.

  But if so, then why had she gone along with it?

  “Look,” Helene pleaded, “forget about all the trouble you’d get into—”

  “What kind of trouble?” Dave interjected.

  A good point. What sort of discipline did the Undertakers have? What could Tom do to me? Give me a detention? A time out? Send me to bed without supper? I’d never heard of anything like that happening in Haven. Was such a high level of cooperation and obedience a result of everyone’s common effort against the Corpses? Or could Tom’s personality really be so strong that more than a hundred kids followed the rules all the time?

  What did that say about a leader?

  And why was I finding it so easy to defy that leader?

  Because I’m a special case.

  I smiled humorlessly.

  “I don’t know what kind of trouble,” Helene admitted, sounding exasperated. “But trouble. Besides that, you can’t get out—not without somebody knowing it. There are motion sensors all along the tunnel.”

  My smile overturned. I hadn’t thought of that.

  “No sweat!” Dave said cheerfully. “Will’s going to think of a way around that. Ain’t that right?”

  “Guess I’ll have to,” I said.

  Helene threw up her hands in disgust. “You’re both crazy! What do you think you’re going to do even if you do manage to get to Fort Mifflin?”

  “What Tom won’t do,” I replied. “I’ll sneak in and find out what’s going on.”

  “You mean we will, dude,” Dave corrected.

  I sighed and then relented. “Okay. We.”

  “Booth’s a Corpse,” Helene pointed out. “There’s no way for you to kill him.”

  “I know that, Helene. I’m not an idiot. I’m not gonna charge in there and start yelling at him. I’m just gonna find out what he’s doing there!”

  Half a minute passed during which Helene studied me with a look on her face that I couldn’t quite identify. Admiration? Respect? Worry? Surprise?

  Finally she said, “Well, in that case—I’m coming too.”

  CHAPTER 33

  Master Plan

  To pull off our unauthorized mission, we required three things: equipment; wheels to Fort Mifflin, meaning three bikes; and some way of getting past Haven’s motion sensors.

  Late Saturday afternoon I went around the Big Room and quietly collected the gear we’d need, including squirt pistols, bottled water for the trip, and a few energy bars. All this I stuffed into three backpacks, which I hid in a dark corner of the Brain Factory where nobody would notice them, least of all Steve.

  The second and third obstacles took a bit more thinking. Because the Stingrays were kept out in the open—in the roped-off corral—just swiping them wasn’t an option. Fortunately, by dinnertime, Helene had an idea. “We didn’t always use Stingrays,” she explained during a quiet powwow that the three of us shared in the cafeteria. “In one of the front storage rooms, there are a bu
nch of older bikes. The room’s close to the ramp, so if we go in quiet—one at a time—we can probably get three bikes out without anybody seeing us.”

  “What about the jump?” I asked.

  She looked thoughtful. “I’ve got a way around that one too—I think.”

  “You think?” Dave remarked nervously.

  That just left the motion sensors.

  Once again it was Helene who came through—this time at Sunday’s breakfast. She dropped onto the cafeteria bench between Dave and me, deposited her tray on the table, and bent her head close to ours. “Good news,” she whispered. “The tunnel sensors are programmed for one-way throughput.”

  “Was that English?” the Burgermeister asked, his voice low.

  “It means that they only detect motion coming into Haven from outside, not the other way around. As long as we’re heading out, they won’t pick us up.”

  “Until we come back,” I whispered.

  If we come back.

  “Well—yes. But by then everybody’ll know we’re gone anyway.”

  She was right, of course.

  “Yeah,” Dave muttered sourly. “Real good news.”

  But it was good news. It meant that we were ready.

  The coming back to Haven part would have to take care of itself.

  That evening the three of us hung out in the TV room, watching whatever was on. My eyes kept straying to the clock, and the minutes dragged like hours. It was all I could do to sit still and stare at the tube. More than once Helene elbowed me for fidgeting.

  Finally the time passed, and with wordless nods all around, we each left the Rec Hall one at a time a few minutes apart. Nobody noticed. I went last.

  The few kids in the Big Room were busy and either so tired or so deeply involved in their tasks that they never even looked up.

  I had no problem at all getting into the storage room unnoticed. By the time I slipped inside, Helene and Dave had already picked out their bikes. Most of the best rides had been dismantled for spare parts, and the leftovers looked pretty lousy. Dave had selected a big old Schwinn, while Helene had settled for a green Huffy. I grabbed a rusty red Roadmaster.

  “The Angels already left,” Helene told us. “I checked. Once they were gone and I was sure nobody else would be going out through the tunnel, I dropped this hunk of plywood over the jump, from ramp to ramp. Tom keeps it handy just in case we have to get everyone out in a hurry.”

  That sounds like Tom, I thought, and I felt a sharp pang of guilt. The Chief would undoubtedly see what we were doing as a betrayal, even if the three of us did manage to do some good out there.

  I patted my jacket pocket, feeling the comforting weight of the pocketknife.

  After tonight I’ll probably need to give it back.

  But I have to do this.

  “You guys ready?” I asked.

  They both nodded.

  “Then let’s go.”

  We departed one bike at a time—walking, not riding. Nobody stopped us. Nobody shouted an alarm. Nobody so much as looked our way.

  Within a minute we were pedaling up the spiral tunnel, and a minute after that, we were on the darkened Philly streets.

  We rode in silence to the Tenth Street subway station. Fortunately bicycles were welcome on city trains, so it was pretty simple to catch the R1 to Philadelphia International Airport. After that it was just a matter of getting through the airport and then mounting up for the one-and-a-half-mile ride to historic Fort Mifflin.

  It was more biking than I’d ever done in my life. The same seemed true for Dave, who huffed and puffed atop the Schwinn, which was clearly too small for him. Only Helene pedaled along without breaking a sweat, keeping to the side roads and following the route we’d mapped out ahead of time. The October night was cold, and cars often jetted past us, creating currents of air in their wakes that threatened to tip our bikes. Worse, because we were riding right by the airport, huge planes kept flying low over our heads, so loud and so massive that I almost lost my balance more than once.

  Finally, with relief, we turned onto the less-traveled Fort Mifflin Road.

  Here, amid wooded marshes, we switched our headlights off, fearful of alerting the Angels, who were undoubtedly already in position. I felt almost dizzy with nervousness as the low, sharply angled walls of the two-hundred-year-old fort came into view. There were lights on inside it, and cars were already filling the North Gate parking lot.

  A lot of cars.

  It was time to get off the streets.

  As planned—and with the fort still a quarter-mile away—Helene led us down a dirt side road. Minutes later we parked our bikes near some railroad tracks around a bend that was flanked by trees and tall grass.

  From there the three of us set off on foot, hurriedly crossing a dimly lit access road that serviced the fort’s administrative offices. We kept low and moved quickly, mindful of the vehicles that were arriving with increasing regularity. Booth, it seemed, wasn’t the only midnight visitor, and the last thing I wanted was to be caught in the headlights of an advancing car.

  We finally reached the northern edge of the moat. From this point, I could see two obvious entrances. One, the North Gate, bridged the moat fifty yards to our left. The other, the Main Gate, was nearer to the parking lot.

  Both entrances were brightly lit and clearly guarded.

  Fortunately we’d already mapped out another way in.

  “The wildlife refuge is on the south side of the fort,” I explained. “That’s where the footbridge is. We’ll follow the moat until we get there. And keep it quiet.”

  The hike proved to be longer and harder than I’d expected, leaving us scratched, muddy, and very cold. By now, voices had begun to emanate from inside the fort. Sharing nervous glances, the three of us crossed a narrow footbridge that spanned the moat. We then approached the high brick façade that formed the fort’s angled southern wall.

  Wordlessly Dave bent over, laced his fingers, and offered me a boost. I took it and was startled to find myself all but thrown over the top of the wall. I landed on a flat, grassy battlement. Helene followed a moment later, and together the two of us managed to haul the Burgermeister up to join us.

  Breathlessly we turned and faced the ancient fort’s bright and noisy interior.

  CHAPTER 34

  Speech

  Buried in shadows, the three of us made our way cautiously down from the earthworks and onto the fort’s green. Moving as quickly as we dared, Dave, Helene, and I soon reached the centuries-old artillery shed, which was constructed more like a big mound of earth with tunnels beneath it than like an actual building. Once there I motioned for the others to stay low. So far we hadn’t been spotted, and I wanted to keep it that way.

  “This is a creepy place,” Dave muttered.

  “That’s because of all the ghosts,” Helene replied.

  The Burgermeister scowled. “That ain’t funny.”

  “That’s because I’m not kidding,” she told him.

  “It’s true,” I said. “Fort Mifflin’s like the second-most haunted place in the country. There’s got to be a dozen ghost stories connected with this place. I thought everybody knew that!”

  “I didn’t,” Dave complained. “Thanks loads.”

  Carefully we peered around the edge of the mound.

  “Wow,” Helene muttered.

  Fort Mifflin’s parade ground was filled with the walking dead. There had to be hundreds of them, dressed in everything from military uniforms to surgical garb. Their milky eyes darted this way and that, and their feet shuffled anxiously, as if they were waiting for something.

  “Jeez,” Dave mumbled. “There’s a lot of them.”

  “Let’s get closer,” I whispered.

  “Closer?” Helene quietly exclaimed.

  I led them around the artillery shed and past the blacksmith’s shop. Finally we settled into the shadows surrounding the two-story commandant’s house. From there we had a pretty good view of the goings-on
.

  And just in time too.

  As we watched, Kenny Booth appeared. He moved through the crowd, still wearing Kyle’s body, and stepped confidently up onto a platform that had been erected in the center of the parade grounds. Kyle’s cadaver was a week old now and not as fresh as it had once been. The skin had turned gray, and the hair had begun to fall out. The result was a grotesque, twisted shadow of the Undertaker who had given his life at First Stop.

  It made my stomach turn to see Kyle’s body so abused. Desecration was the word that came to mind. I hadn’t really known the boy whose skin this Corpse now wore, but he’d surely deserved better treatment than this.

  Besides, Mr. Would-Be-Mayor was wearing a fancy suit and tie that I was pretty certain poor Kyle wouldn’t have been caught dead in—no pun intended.

  “I hate seeing him in Kyle’s body,” Helene said.

  “I know,” I replied. “Try focusing on his Mask instead.”

  Taking my own advice, I crossed my eyes, watching not Kyle’s face but the older-looking, perfectly grooved visage of Philly’s favorite news guy. It helped a little.

  Behind me the Burgermeister grumbled, “I really wish I knew how you guys did that.”

  I almost assured him that he’d learn but stopped myself. To be brutally honest, I wasn’t sure he ever would.

  On the platform, Kenny Booth raised his fists skyward in a triumphant salute. The crowd roared. “Brothers and sisters!” The Corpse spoke loudly in Kyle’s voice. It was unsettling, but at least he was speaking English. Suffering through a speech given in Deadspeak would have been too much! “For years we have returned to this place, drawn to its long and bloody history, to meet in secret. But tonight is no ordinary gathering! Tonight, safe from human eyes, we revel in the knowledge that we are about to enjoy our first great victory on this place called Earth!”

  “They must have Corpse police posted on the roads around the fort,” Helene whispered, “making sure nobody gets close enough to hear any of this.”