Sandman

by William W. Johnstone

  Paul had conned them all.

  He hit the bedroom door with his shoulder, knocking it open, and literally fell into the room, landing on the floor, banging his knee.

  The scene that greeted his eyes and the stench that filled his nostrils momentarily stunned and sickened him, freezing him to the carpet.

  Janis’s clothing was ripped. The girl’s shirt, torn from her, was hanging in shreds. She was keeping her jeans up by clutching the waistband. She must have been standing by the window when the thing grabbed her.

  Mark Kelly, his burial suit dusty and dirty, had one leg over the window sill, and was struggling to climb all the way into the bedroom.

  The room stank of the grave.

  Melissa sat in the center of the bed, her eyes wide with fear, her face chalk white.

  Mark grunted and grinned. His mouth was filled with maggots. One crawled over his bottom lip and down his chin, to fall silently to the carpet.

  The walking, living dead reached for his daughter with wormlike white fingers. Janis seemed rooted to the floor, unable to move.

  Leo jumped to his feet, his aching knee almost giving way under him. He grabbed a brass lamp from Janis’s nightstand and lunged toward the walking dead, hitting Mark in the center of the head with the heavy lamp, knocking him backward, out of the shattered window. Mark howled in anger; his breath, crypt-cold, fouled the night air.

  “Get out of here!” Leo yelled to the girls, as Mark began to climb back through the window.

  The girls ran.

  Leo jerked the spread off the bed, and tossed it over Mark’s head. He balled his right hand into a fist, then popped the zombie on the side of his jaw, just as hard as he could.

  Mark’s fingers closed on Leo’s bare arm, digging in, trying to pull the man to him. Leo smashed the monstrosity again, broke free of the cold fingers.

  Behind him, up the hallway, Janis and Connie and Melissa were screaming.

  Leo hit the undead again, the impact of fist against jaw hurting his hand; but he was too keyed up to notice. He swung a short left hook that caught Mark on his bedspread-covered nose. The bridge crunched under the blow and flattened.

  Mark threw off the spread.

  There was no blood on him despite the battering he’d taken.

  He reached for Leo. His dead eyes were bright with rage and the life beyond the darkness of the grave.

  Leo had always been a brave cop. Never a stupid one. In the span of about three seconds, he decided it was time to haul it out of there.

  He turned and ran out the open door, heading for Mark’s study and the gun cabinet there.

  Grunting and snorting and leaving a trail of worms and maggots and dirt, stinking of the grave, Mark lumbered and stumbled after Leo, staggering from side to side in the hallway, bouncing off the walls.

  “Get the kids out of here!” Leo yelled to Connie, as he turned into Mark’s study.

  “Where to?” Connie screamed from the den.

  “Father Gomez. Go to the church. I’ll meet you there. And don’t stop for anyone.”

  “What?”

  “Just go—now!”

  Leo smashed the gun-cabinet door with his fist, the glass cutting his hand. He jerked out a shotgun and jammed in shells, turning when he heard Mark breathing behind him.

  He leveled the gun and began pulling and pumping. The medium loads blasted into Mark’s dead body, the force of them, at almost point-blank range, knocking it backward, out into the hall. Leo reloaded, this time with buckshot, and fired again.

  Howling ancient curses that originated from the dark and sour side of the grave, Mark screamed and lurched away, heading up the hall, toward the den.

  Leo heard Connie’s car back out of the garage, the tires protesting as she raced away.

  Leo stood for a moment, listening. He was alone in the house with Mark.

  He breathed through his mouth. The stench in the house was sickening. He stepped on a crawling maggot and felt the thing crunch under his shoe.

  He could hear nothing.

  He turned to the gun cabinet and stuffed his pockets with shells, magnum loads, buckshot. He loaded up again, chambering a round and adding a fresh round to the tube.

  He longed for his old sawed-off riot gun.

  He paused, listening.

  The house was silent.

  But Leo could sense that Mark was still in it. Hiding. Waiting.

  He jerked up the phone in the study and punched out Mike’s number, figuring the chief would be home at this time of night. He was, having dinner with Mary Beth.

  Leo spoke for about ten seconds, then hung up. Mike was on the way, with reinforcements.

  Leo remained silent for a moment, thinking and listening. What could he do? He decided the shotgun was very nearly useless against Mark. How does one kill a person who is already dead?

  Stanford had told him. Leo hadn’t believed Willingston at the time. Now he did.

  What had the inspector said?

  Yeah. He remembered. Just like in the books and the movies. He laid the shotgun aside and looked around him, saw a small fireplace that looked as though it had never been used. Leo picked up a brass poker and unscrewed the hook. Stanford had told him that the only way to kill one of these things was to pierce its heart.

  All right. He’d try it.

  He walked to the study door and paused, gripping the poker tightly. No strong grave smell greeted him. He could still smell the tomb, but felt reasonably sure that Mark was not in the hall.

  The little bit of doubt remaining didn’t do very much to calm his rattled nerves, however.

  He stepped out into the semidarkness of the hallway, the poker held like a bayoneted rifle, ready to be driven deep into the walking horror’s chest.

  The hallway was empty.

  The floor creaked behind him.

  He whirled around.

  Nothing.

  Taking a ragged breath, Leo slipped silently up the hall, pausing just before he reached the archway that opened into the brightly lighted den.

  Only the den was no longer as brightly lit as Leo remembered it being when he and Connie were having coffee and talking.

  Only one small lamp was burning, and that was placed in a far corner.

  Shadows loomed long in the sunken room.

  Leo gritted his teeth, reluctant to face the darkness that yawned before him.

  The undead creature had enough sense remaining to turn off the lights. Then a more disturbing thought came to him: Mark could see as well in the dark as Leo could in the light of day.

  Wonderful.

  Outside, the night seemed unnaturally quiet, with no sirens cutting the darkness, no flashing red and blue lights.

  Leo wondered about that.

  And within a few heartbeats, he suddenly realized why Paul had gone to the hospital so willingly, even cheerfully. Why he was taking it all so calmly.

  Every little thing began to click into place until the macabre puzzle lay exposed in Leo’s mind, in all its ugliness.

  It was horrifying.

  Disgusting.

  It came to him with such a soul-wrenching jar that he was almost numbed.

  Everything the boy had been doing was an act. His screaming tantrums over what the others, including Leo, had perceived as his failures, had been, in reality, personal victories. Paul had quietly and calmly, and quite brilliantly, conned them all. He had worked it all out in his twisted and hate-filled mind. With more than a little help from a much darker power.

  In the gloom of the den, Mark laughed.

  Leo’s hands were sweaty as he gripped the handle of the poker. Could Mark intercept his thoughts? He guessed so.

  Jesus, Joseph, and Mary!

  Leo wiped his palms on his pants’ leg.

  They were alone.

  Alone!

  Sure they were. That was the way Paul planned it all along.

  There would be no cops racing to the rescue. Well, maybe two or three. At most Mike, Peter, B
urt Sandry, and perhaps Raymond/Fifteen. Leo felt that would be just about it as far as badges went.

  He leaned against the hall wall and fought back a hard trembling as the awful truth struck home and settled in his mind.

  Stanford had warned him, cautioned him repeatedly, that everything Paul did might not be what it appeared to be at first glance. He had dealt with the Devil and his minions and servants before. He had known that one must always be ready to expect the unexpected.

  The inspector had been right, of course.

  And now, Leo thought, Paul had the entire town in his pocket.

  Nearly everybody. Leo would bet on that. He was betting. His life.

  While Leo and the others had been running around willy-nilly, their thoughts on destroying the devil-child, Paul had been quietly taking control of nearly everyone in the town.

  But how had the boy done it?

  How! Leo mentally berated himself for not spotting what was going on. How could just one person manage to accomplish such a task?

  Then it came to him.

  Very easily, that’s how.

  Because the people in the town were already a part of the Dark One’s scheme. They probably hadn’t even realized it. Not until Paul returned from the islands.

  They’d all been waiting for the young master.

  But nagging doubts tugged at Leo’s mind. Was Paul the end or the beginning? Was he the mainspring, or simply a minor cog?

  Leo didn’t know. Might never know.

  But he was certain of one thing: They were alone.

  Alone.

  The thought chilled him.

  Connie. Connie and the kids. For the first time in his life, Leo had found someone he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. He wasn’t going to lose her now. He had to get to them. Had to prevent them from making contact with anyone outside the tiny group he was reasonably sure of.

  Leo took several deep breaths. He could smell the rancid stink of the grave. The sour odor of rotting flesh. Of flesh-eating worms.

  Suddenly, Leo screamed and charged into the den.

  And ran right into the solid grave-stink of Mark Kelly.

  His unexpected charge had startled the living dead. The collision had knocked the creature sprawling to the den floor. Leo maintained his grip on the poker as he leaped to his feet and stood over the stinking creature from the satin-lined mouth of the grave.

  Mark looked up at Leo, his undead eyes burning like coals of hate.

  “Die, damn you!” Leo screamed, holding the poker with both hands, high over his head.

  Mark hissed a long sigh of icy-cold death-breath at Leo.

  Then he laughed.

  Leo brought the poker down with all his strength, the tip driving deep into the man’s chest.

  Mark screamed, a banshee’s wailing; ten thousand voices ripped from the bowels of Hell as the metal tip plunged deep into his body. Mark tried to roll. But Leo held him firm, impaled on the poker. Mark hunched his hips, attempting to work loose. He could not. Leo worked the poker deeper, sweat dripping from his face.

  A corruption sprang from Mark’s ruined chest, a vile, stinking greenish fluid erupted in a gush from the maggot-eaten body and the blackened heart. Mark’s hands gripped the shaft of the poker; curses rolled, in a dozen languages, from his mouth. But his weakened arms were unable to pull the offensive metal from his chest.

  He gripped Leo’s ankles, trying to bring the man down. He could not. Leo kicked the undead on the side of the head, in his mouth. Worms gathered on the tip of his shoe.

  He shook his foot, dislodging the worms. He had a horror of them crawling up his pants’ leg and eating into his flesh.

  Straddling Mark, standing over him, one foot on either side, Leo summoned all his strength and drove the poker deeper into the zombie’s chest. Oblivious to the green, stinking filth that squirted from the enlarging hole, he worked the poker from side to side, always driving it deeper.

  Mark howled. Howled like a rabid monster caught in a death trap. He hissed like a huge snake. Shook and trembled as the hissing faded into nothing when his second soul winged away into eternity, never to return.

  Leo hoped.

  Leo looked down. No metamorphosis had taken place. Mark was peaceful in death. He had not been one of them. Only an unwilling and unwitting participant. A pawn for his son to play with.

  That was a relief to Leo, for he had been wondering about Mark and Connie.

  Now, standing over Mark, looking down at his peaceful face, he was sure of Connie.

  But what was he to do with the body?

  “What am I thinking of? Jesus—leave it!”

  His chest heaving from his exertions, Leo took a moment to calm his racing heart; then he staggered back to the study and grabbed up the shotgun. He stuffed his pockets full of shells, and grabbed a .38 pistol and a rifle from the cabinet. Pockets bulging with ammunition, he ran toward the back door and raced to his car. Tossing the guns onto the seat, he locked all the doors, then backed out of the drive.

  He saw many people milling about in their front yards or on the sidewalk or along the curb. They seemed disoriented, not sure of what to do next.

  Leo felt their orders would soon come.

  He drove off, picking up speed.

  He almost collided with Mike’s unit at an intersection. Tires smoking, the cars slid to a stop. Mary Beth was sitting next to Mike.

  Leo backed up and rolled down his window. “It’s busted wide open!” he called. “This has been Paul’s plan all along. I’m sure of it. Find Peter and Raymond and Sheriff Sandry. Don’t count on anyone else in this town. I believe nearly everyone else has rolled over and joined Paul. Willingly or unwillingly. But that makes no difference now. I just killed Mark. I’ll get Connie and Linda and the girls. We’ll meet at the hospital.”

  Mary Beth’s eyes were round with fear. She opened her mouth to speak, then closed it.

  Mike appeared stunned. He shook his head. “Everybody in the town?”

  “Near as I can guess, yes.”

  “The doctors and nurses?”

  “Possibly. I don’t know. We can only hope that a few are still with us. I guess we’re just going to have to find that out the hard way.”

  “Jesus Christ!”

  “That’s one of the people I’ve been quietly calling on during the past ten minutes or so,” Leo admitted. “Let’s get going, Mike.”

  A thrown brick spider-webbed the rear side window of Mike’s unit. The impact caused him and Mary Beth to jump.

  Then, from one end of the street, a chanting, humming, evil sound drifted to them.

  Mike looked up toward it. When he spoke, his voice was hoarse. “Dear God in Heaven!”

  Mary Beth put her face in her hands and began slowly shaking her head back and forth.

  The humming and chanting intensified, coupled with the sounds of marching feet.

  “There’s two of my men in that crowd,” Mike said.

  Leo twisted in his seat, looking behind him. He grimaced, swallowed hard. Fear touched him with a cold slimy hand that seemed to tangle in his gut and hold on tight.

  The street behind them was filled with people, walking, marching, shoulder to shoulder. They waved guns and clubs, and shouted hatred and profanity as they chanted praises to Satan.

  One phrase stood out from all the rest: “Die! Die! Die!”

  Leo dropped his car into gear and wiped his sweaty palms on his shirt. “I’ve still got the walkie-talkie, Mike. We’ll stay in touch that way.”

  Mike nodded his head.

  “Roll it!” Leo shouted above the hate-filled voices. He floorboarded the gas pedal and squalled off.

  Mike jammed the pedal to the floor and spun the wheel, doing a cop turnaround in the middle of the street, his rear tires smoking. He followed the taillights of Leo’s car.

  Mike keyed his mike. “I wonder if we can get out of town?”

  Leo picked up the walkie-talkie. “I don’t know. I wouldn’t bet on
it.”

  “What’s the plan?”

  Driving one-handed, Leo said, “I told Connie to take the kids to Father Gomez. You know where Carol Hovey and Jean Polk live?”

  “Ten-four.”

  “Pick them up. And be careful when dealing with their parents. You know what I mean.”

  “Ten-four. And you’ll be ... ?”

  “I’ll go get Linda and then pick up the boys, Roy and Bing. I’ll meet you at the church.”

  “Ten-four. I’ll get in touch with Peter and Fifteen.”

  “Pete here,” the speakers in the cars popped. “I’ve got Fifteen right with me, on my tail. Stay away from the station, Mike. The personnel have turned.”

  “All of them?” Mike radioed, disbelief in his voice.

  “All of them, Mike.”

  “Sheriff Sandry here,” the speakers crackled. “Same with my substation. We’re all alone in this thing, people. I had to kill one of my deputies, but I picked up a back seat full of weapons and other gear. I’ll head for the church and secure that area. See you all over there.”

  “Ten-four, Burt,” Leo radioed.

  “One more thing,” Sheriff Sandry radioed.

  Mike and Leo waited.

  “Don’t try to leave town. They’ve got us cut off and boxed in tight. I don’t know what they think they’re going to gain by this. Deputies and state police all over the county are monitoring these transmissions. This place will be crawling with cops in a couple of hours.”

  A strange voice rattled the speakers. “A couple of hours is all we need.”

  Another voice added to the confusion. “What’s going on over there?” Only Leo could not hear it on his short-range walkie-talkie. “This is the state police. I—”

  The voice was cut off.

  “The bastards jammed the frequency!” Burt hollered into his mike.

  “You can bet dispatch will broadcast a ten-thirty-three now,” Mike’s voice was calm.

  “What’s a ten-thirty-three?” Mary Beth asked.

  “Emergency situation in progress. Keep the frequency clear for local and emergency traffic only. That will give those who’ve rolled over even more time. Maybe until dawn.”

  “Thirty-eight point two is requesting ten-thirty-three.” Dispatch’s voice was cold and clear. “Please use teletype for communications and disregard any radio transmissions. We have a one-oh-three M with a police band radio disrupting regular communications. Do you ten-four, State Police?”