by Ty Drago
Then why leave? Where were they going?
“Things to do.”
What things?
What had Dillin, the traitor, told him?
What could he have told the boy that would have caused the most harm?
The Anchor Shard.
No!
“Frank,” she said, forcing a calmness into her voice that she definitely didn’t feel. “Change of plans. I need to get to Fort Mifflin … now.”
“What?” He looked so blankly, so stupidly at her, that she nearly killed him anyway. But again, with Herculean effort, she restrained herself.
“I need to get to Fort Mifflin,” she repeated. “A car won’t be fast enough. But, tell me Frank, do you still have mayoral access to that lovely helicopter?”
Chapter 38
ENEMY AT THE GATES
Tom
“Undertakers,” Tom said into the microphone. “They’re coming. I know y’all are scared. I’m scared, too. But we’re gonna be strong. We’re gonna stand. Right now, some of us … some of our very best … are out on the streets tryin’ to finally end this thing. All we gotta do is hang tough and give them the time they need. For ourselves. For our families. For our world.
“So when y’all start seein’ Corpses, when they come within strikin’ range, remember this: I’m in it with you. I’ll be fightin’ right beside you. We’re Undertakers. And Undertakers are never alone.”
He flipped off the newly installed PA system and turned to Alex and Steve. “They all heard me? Everywhere?”
“Everywhere,” Steve replied. “And we have cameras set up at all three exits.” He pointed to three secondhand computer monitors that had been set up.
Alex said, “I’ve got some of my crew at each site to shore up any weak spots.”
“Then we’re as ready as we can be. Get to your positions.”
As Steve and Alex left the Infirmary, Tom glanced over at Susan Ritter. Haven’s medic was counting inventory for probably the fourth or fifth time in the last hour. Busywork. Something to do—before the wounded started to arrive.
It had been Susan’s idea to reserve a corner of the Infirmary for running the siege. To Tom, it made perfect sense. It was a large space, more or less equidistant from each of the exits, and close to the maintenance door into City Hall—just in case they had to start evacuating people.
Alex’s crew had set up the cables and cameras last week, before Tom had told anyone about his invasion fears. That meant it had simply been a matter of running the lines into the infirmary and setting up the microphone and monitors atop an old wooden table.
Instant command center.
Tom also had four different sat phones lined up, not counting his own, which was reserved for calls from Sharyn. There was one phone for each of the Angels running each of the defensive fronts, plus a fourth for Ramirez. That would keep the lines of communications open and constant.
Just a minute ago, one of the smart phones that Tom had taken off the Corpses in the park that afternoon had rung. On it, he’d watched Lilith Cavanaugh’s “troop address.” It had been short and to the point. Commence the siege. Kill everyone.
Now it starts.
And we’re ready.
As if such a thing were possible.
***
The Corpses hit Haven’s western entrance first, ramming their stolen bodies repeatedly into the steel door leading from the sentry room to the lowest level of the underground parking garage. This door had been shored up from the inside, criss-crossed with thick, heavy planks of wood bolted into the surrounding concrete.
But within minutes, those planks began to tremble.
***
They hit the southern entrance next, tearing at the barricade that closed off the mouth of the subway spur. They had almost no light to work with, but instead clawed and ripped at the obstacle blindly with strong, dead hands. The structure, almost twenty feet high and loosely assembled, shuddered from the assault.
***
They hit the northern entrance last, coming at the old door from the sewers the only way they could: one at a time. But this door, while also reinforced by Alex’s team, was older and far more rusted than the one in the parking garage.
A few of the dead, squeezing in and working together, managed to rip it from its aging hinges within the first few seconds. This earned triumphant growls from the others as the first of their number spilled into the long, dark corridor that now stood between them and Haven.
There they stopped, looking perplexed.
There was music playing. And it was playing loud.
***
Burt called in. “They’re through!”
“I see it,” Tom told him, watching the monitor. “You ready?”
The boy laughed. There was eagerness in that laugh. And terror. “Yeah, we’re ready.”
“Wait until as many get in as possible.”
“If the inner door holds,” Burt said.
“Is Alex with you yet?”
“Yeah.”
“What’s he say?”
“He says it’ll hold … for a while.”
Tom said, “Lemme see if I can slow ‘em down a little bit.”
“Thanks, Chief.”
“Hang tough, Burton.”
“You know it. Is my brother okay?”
Steve’s voice filled the call, surprising Tom, who hadn’t known the Brain Boss was also monitoring communications. “I’m fine! Now do your job and don’t die!”
“Good advice, big brother,” Burt said.
Then he hung up.
***
At the western entrance, the parking garage door trembled violently. As Tom watched, the first of the crossbars gave way, its bolts bent and twisted from the repeated body slams.
Within seconds, another one weakened.
In the door’s upper corner, away from its hinges, the steel peeled back, sounding like the shriek of a freight train.
Gray fingers, torn and lifeless but horribly strong, reached through the opening, clawing and grasping at the air.
***
At the southern entrance, the barricade finally surrendered to all of the dead fingers digging away at it. Deliberately built to be top heavy, the two-story structure, bathed in darkness, collapsed, burying dozens of Corpses under a ton of debris.
The others noted this.
Then they began climbing over their fallen comrades.
***
Tom raised the microphone to his lips.
“Attention, deaders!” he announced cheerfully, watching the monitors. As he’d hoped, the Corpses on all three fronts stopped, or at least slowed.
He said, “This is Tom Jefferson, Chief of the Undertakers, and I’d like to welcome y’all to Haven. By now, some of you’ve already clued in on a few of tonight’s festivities. By my count, maybe twenty of y’all just got crushed when that barricade fell. And there’s lots more surprises to come!”
Tom paused, studying all three monitors. The western outer door had been breached, and maybe three-dozen Corpses had already flooded the narrow, high-ceiling corridor between the main sewer channel and Haven’s entrance. The northern door went next. Half its bolts had been either shaken loose or ripped free. As Tom watched, the final ones gave way and the door tore from its hinges. Corpses, two abreast, stepped into the sentry room.
At the same time, fully a hundred—maybe more—of Cavanaugh’s soldiers were spilling over the remains of the barricade and filling the subway spur.
Still coming, but listening, too.
Yes, he had their attention, which was kind of a victory all by itself.
He said, “We’ve had lots of time to prepare for y’all. We got all kinds of party favors waitin’. And some o’ those ain’t the ‘break my host body so I gotta wait for a new one’ kind of favors. They’re more like the ‘waste me so bad that my Self’s got no place to go and I’m history’ variety.
&nb
sp; “Here’s what each of you might take a second to think ‘bout. There’s three different groups of y’all, each knocking on a different door. Each one’s got its own surprises comin’. You don’t know what they are, or how bad they’ll hit you … but I promise, you won’t dig ‘em. Not one bit.
“So now, what y’all have to decide is this: who’s first?
“The night’s young … and we ain’t goin’ noplace.”
He put down the microphone and watched the monitors.
At all entrances, the deaders in the back were still coming, spilling in like ants out of their nest.
But the ones in front had stopped moving.
Tom started counting the seconds. He figured that little speech had bought them five minutes, maybe ten.
Hurry up, sis. Will.
Hurry up.
Chapter 39
MIFFLIN REVISITED
Fort Mifflin is an old Revolutionary War fort that sits in the marshland southwest of Philly. A museum until the Corpses turned it to their own purposes, it consists of a dozen or so buildings surrounded by high brick ramparts that form a funny star shape when looked at from above.
The last time I was here, I’d been new to the Undertakers and had decided to go “off reservation,” leaving Haven without permission. As a result, I’d managed to rescue Amy Filewicz from the deaders, but had nearly lost Helene in the process.
Not my finest hour.
But I was still kind of proud of it. Weird.
Back then, getting here had been tough: a subway train to the airport, then bikes down to the marshes.
Tonight, we had a van, which had been parked right where Sharyn said it would be. The four of us piled in, having left Richard Kimball lying in the alley.
The Pelligog might have come in handy. We might have used them to control another Corpse, maybe get him or her to waltz into the East Magazine and unplug the shard for us. Problem was: the nest could only control one person at a time. And we’d had no easy way to get to spider-thing I’d stuck into Kimball out of him again.
So, after some heated debate, the Pelligog “ball” had come along, but only because we hadn’t yet figured out a handy way of destroying it.
With Sharyn driving, we came within a half-mile of Mifflin, which from this distance, looked as lit up as a football stadium.
“Just like last time,” Helene remarked.
“Some differences,” I said.
“Yeah,” Sharyn added. “Like this time you’re allowed to be here.”
“That’s one.”
Beside me on the back seat, the Burgermeister held up his right arm. In tight quarters, the pickaxe attached to his wrist looked particularly big. “Here’s another,” he groused.
I’d been watching him carefully since we’d left Haven, looking for signs of trouble. After all, the Anchor Shard may have healed his body. But, as any soldier will tell you, sometimes the mental wounds are worse than the physical. Until this point, he’d been going on momentum, on adrenaline. But now, riding in this van with little to do but think, I could see the weight of his new situation—no pun intended—pressing down on him.
“You okay?” I asked.
“I’m cool,” he replied.
I tried to think of something else to say. But nothing came to mind.
I wish it had.
“I’m seein’ a lot of cars in the lot,” Sharyn said. “We’re gonna have to pull over and hoof it from here. I’m guessin’ you three know the way?”
We parked partway down a dirt access road and headed into the marshland that surrounded Mifflin. No flashlights. Couldn’t risk being seen from the fort. Instead, we used its bright lights to guide us along, which isn’t as helpful as it sounds when there are brambles, mud pits, and sinkholes all around you, invisible in the dark.
Sharyn was sticking close to Dave, who lumbered along, trying to learn a new rhythm of walking with that extra weight on his right side. His girlfriend kept pace, holding his left hand and talking to him, though in so low a whisper that I couldn’t hear what she said.
I looked at Helene.
She looked at me.
Then, almost without thinking, I took her hand as well.
A pretty crazy way to sneak into a fort full of deaders—holding hands, I mean. But you had to be there.
“You brought the Pelligog,” Sharyn said to me at one point.
“Yeah,” I replied.
“Why not just leave it in the van?”
“Because I think I know how to kill the nest.”
Helene asked, “How?”
“I’m gonna leave it beside the Anchor Shard when we pull its plug.”
Behind me, Dave remarked. “I like it.”
“Me, too,” Sharyn added.
Helene squeezed my hand.
There’s a little-used footbridge that approaches the fort from the east. As the four of us crossed it, single file, my sense of déjà vu felt as thick as soup. A couple of times I caught Helene’s eye.
She felt it too. Foreboding.
Last time, things at Mifflin had ended badly.
“We gotta get over the wall,” Sharyn said, looking up at the ten-foot rampart rising steeply out of the marsh. “How’d you dudes do it before?”
“Dave threw us over it,” Helene said. “Then we pulled him up.”
The Burgermeister scowled. “That ain’t gonna work this time. Step aside.”
We stepped aside and he marched up to the dirt wall and jumped. He didn’t get too high. Jumping wasn’t his—specialty, but at the top of the jump he swung his right arm up and jammed the pickaxe deep into the mortared surface of the wall.
For a split second, he hung there. Then, flexing those ridiculously big shoulders of his, he pulled himself high enough to grab a fistful of grass at the top of the wall.
Just like that, he was over.
“Huh,” I said.
“Wow,” Helene said.
Sharyn grinned. “Hot Dog.”
A moment later, he reappeared, lying flat on his belly with his shoulders over the edge the rampart, reaching both his hand and his pickaxe down toward us.
“Well?” he whispered harshly. “The world ain’t gonna save itself!”
Sharyn went first, running up the wall and grabbing hold of both the hand and the axe. The Burgermeister swung her up and over the lip of the rampart.
Helene went next and I took up the rear, worried that the duffle of monsters might add too much weight. It didn’t. In seconds, I was atop the wall, with Sharyn and Helene pulling me to my feet.
“Nice,” I told Dave, meaning it, as the big kid rose and brushed the dirt and grass off the front of his shirt.
“Yeah,” was all he said.
Hidden in the shadows, the four of us faced the interior of Fort Mifflin.
“Oh … crap,” Helene whispered.
Corpses.
Well, of course we knew there’d be some. I mean, Cavanaugh wasn’t dumb enough to leave her Anchor Shard, and its precious Rift, unguarded. So we’d come down here expecting to have to fight our way in. And we’d come prepared—with the weapons and strategies necessary to take out a half-dozen deaders, if we had to.
Except there weren’t a half-dozen.
There were twenty.
At least.
“Okay,” Sharyn said. “Now it’s time to phone home.”
Chapter 40
COLE’S DEAL
Tom
Tom closed his sat phone, the one he’d earmarked for calls from Sharyn.
Barely five minutes had passed since he’d cast his challenge and, so far, the Corpses still seemed confused and wary. None of them had ventured any deeper into any of the entrances.
Yet.
“Who was that?” Susan asked.
“Sharyn.” For a moment, he wondered how much he should tell her. But then he decided, at this point, everybody deserved to know all of it. “Seems there’re mor
e deaders guarding the Fort Mifflin Anchor Shard than we expected.”
“What’re they going to do?” Will’s mom asked. She tried to sound cool about it, but Tom could read her face. She was worried for her son.
“They don’t know yet, but they’ll figure it out,” he said. “This is Will, Susan. He always figures it out.”
“I know,” she replied.
But figuring it out will slow them down. And time ain’t our friend.
A voice from one of the monitors said, “Chief Jefferson.”
Tom turned. A figure, a deader, stood in the spur, about halfway between the fallen barricade and the door to Haven. While his peeps were all shuffling nervously, this one stood stock-still, his milky eyes fixed on the camera, which was mounted in the high ceiling.
He was a Type One, big and strong.
“Can you hear me, Chief Jefferson?”
Tom picked up the microphone.
“Should you?” Susan asked, putting a gentle hand on his arm. “Maybe it would be better to ignore him.”
“Don’t think so,” he told her.
Then he hit the TALK button and said, “This is Jefferson.”
“My name is Cole. I imagine you’ve heard of me.”
“Co-Chief of Police,” Tom said. “Parker’s brother ‘Special.’”
“Imprecise, but adequate. I’m the commander of this assault force. I’d like to offer you a deal.”
Tom thought: A deal? Y’all outnumber us five to one. Your soldiers are faster’n us. Stronger’n us. And they don’t even feel pain. You know as well as I do that we can’t hold you off for very long. So why deal?
“I’m listening.”
“Surrender now.”
“Uh-huh. We do that and you’ll … what? Let us walk?”
The Corpse slowly shook his head, pasting a smile on his dead face that might have looked rueful on a living man. “I wouldn’t insult your intelligence. No, Mr. Jefferson. You’re all going to die tonight. Every last one of you. But there are different ways to die. Surrender now, and I will guarantee that the children under your command will meet death quickly and painlessly.”
