as a boy died with a bullet in his heart, as a woman screamed pierced between her ribs and legs, as a carload of seniors burned by the side of the road. Tiny’s face was flushed with rape and murder. Driver’s eyes were full of blood. His own face tingled where the teen scratched while he raped her.
“Bloody!” Driver’s face was near to his. The Texan’s breath was rank with fear.
“Crime.” Bloody’s dead mouth spat the word.
“Yeah, we’re in deep this time.” Driver squinted into the tunnel.
Ring. Tunnel. Clang. Mind the gap. A woman was near the edge of the platform, her back arched over tight buttocks in denim. A horn blew. She fell into the path of the subway without a sound. Gong. A touch of the hand. Bitch!
Driver’s face softened looking up at him. “Do you know, I expect this Goddamned place has made me antsy. I don’t like ridin’ unknown range, I’ll tell you. I got to remember there’s a shit load of money waitin’ for us at the end of the trail.” Driver dropped his head, shook it. “Tiny needs us.”
Us. Gong. Driver and Tiny and Bloody. Ring! They’re drinking. A woman is dead in the alley with a knife in her. They’re carrying on. A guy tries to pistol whip Driver. Bloody’s cannon takes his head off.
“Shit,” Driver hissed, looking at his boots. “Now I’m gettin’ gloomy.”
“Gloomy.” Bloody’s voice was a papery rustle.
“You too huh?” Driver looked him over. “Why not with all this Devil-Angel shit…”
Clang. Bloody snapped his head forward, looking around the parking lot. Driver was busy with a new cigarette, couldn’t see him. Ghost. The gunman rode the gong waves back into himself-away from himself. If they brought him back again it might be too much. He could not resist so many ghosts.
56 – The March
Updike pressed the broad heel of his left hand to his left eye. Immediately following his speech, a hot stiletto of pain had begun slowly inserting itself through the pupil, driving toward his brain. For the better part of an hour it probed and pried-digging for the center of his being. Before it found its mark, he was able to pass it off as the result of too many days of travel and stress. Since the Angelic argument had ended so long ago, he seldom got headaches, and was unconcerned about this one, until an hour had passed and the burning needle sunk home. The pain came on him like a possession-memories disappeared, sensation blurred, numbed and winked out. He started a desperate search for painkillers.
Luckily, the army counted a division of the living among their number, so the dead medics had added various analgesics to their kits.
The bulk of the meds resembled hardware supplies. Treating injuries of the dead was relatively simple. A broken bone was glued and screw-nailed back together, a chest wound required some fiberglass and resin. But the alienation felt by the dead was not exclusively theirs. For years, disaffected living converts had joined the cause. Good intentions, sympathy for the dead and their care may have provoked many of the living to join. But word of the Apocalypse held incendiary meaning to some. Many wanted to join the ranks of the dead for the final battle- literally.
Sparks flared across his vision in the offending eye when he pushed against it. The technique caused a minor cessation of the pain, and created a synaptic disorientation that took his mind off of the worst of it. The painkillers he’d taken had done little for his discomfort.
Stoneworthy could tell that something was wrong, but he respectfully accepted Updike’s assurances that the minor annoyance would soon pass. So the dead minister spent his time moving among the troops, spreading the word, keeping the faith firm. The difficulty of their goal could not diminish its glory. Updike had walked with him for the first four hours of the march, but the pain had forced him to climb into one of the dozens of jeeps that his forces had acquired.
The army consisted of infantry, for the most part and was spread out over several miles. They had managed to find, and scrounge a large number of trucks and other off road vehicles to carry supplies and armament. Many of the antiques predated the Change, but were constructed before the computer age and so could be fixed with wrenches and solder. He had discussed the difficulties of moving such a large force on foot, but his military commanders were not concerned. Their pragmatism said that the availability of fuel would have been a problem-so eliminate the dependence before it begins. As it was, with the four hundred or so trucks and vehicles, they would have enough difficulty.
Moving an army of some 150,000 on transports would consume the available supply of fuel in a day. Fuel became scarcer with every mile you traveled from the City of Light. Besides, they joked, his army was dead on their feet already, and wouldn’t be tired out by the march. Updike had been around the military mind enough to know its inner workings. Such black humor was a way of making sane men accept insane things.
He had climbed into the jeep that carried General Bolton. The soldier claimed he had been killed during the dead uprising of ‘11. His battalion then was sent in by the failing U.S. government to quiet a loosely organized rebellion of the dead. Some four thousand of them had run amok in Old Chicago after the local city council had erected its umpteenth “dead only” sign. Like many among the living in those days, Bolton had underestimated the strength and determination of the walking corpses.
Bolton had laughed. “Jesus did we get it bad. Turns out that dead men do dry out, yes. Given time. But not all dead men come apart easy. See, it was still the early days and lots we didn’t know. If a dead man soaks himself in oil or some other preservative, well, his skin and muscle turns as tough as rawhide. And are they strong! My group ran into about fifty of these chaps in a blind alley. They butchered us. I must have been in Blacktime when the truck ran over me.”
Despite his constant exposure to the dead, Updike’s first meeting with the dead general was distracting. Most of the man’s hair was gone and the skull was crisscrossed with rawhide stitches, reminding the preacher of a baseball. His entire skeleton was severely damaged because his face turned on a left incline of some forty-five degrees and his right shoulder and arm was eight inches lower than the left.
“I don’t hold a grudge though,” General Bolton had said swelling with pride. “It was the same guys who cut me up that put me back together.”
The General rode in the back of the jeep beside Updike, studying a laminated topographical map. Occasionally he would grumble to himself and jot a note in a pad. Bolton smelled of shoe polish. Many of the dead soldiers drank it, claiming it had revivifying properties. Updike suspected it just kept the body tissues from drying out. Bolton’s lips and teeth were black because of the habit.
The preacher pressed on his throbbing eye-sparks flew across his memory. With his free hand he dropped two tablets in his mouth and swallowed them with a drink from his canteen. He retreated from his headache into the past twenty-four hours. It was a whirlwind of activity: packing up, preparing the long march, planning the route, and assigning officers. With food and water required for only a small percentage of the force, the army was able to get underway without delay. Always Updike was impressed by Stoneworthy. The dead minister was charged with the light of Heaven, never pausing, moving tirelessly among the dead army encouraging and helping.
He was a great support after Updike’s call to Mayor Barnstable. The preacher had pressed the mayor for compliance. He was committed to razing the City, but he was still a man of God and feared the death his army would cause if the City ignored the Divine edict.
Barnstable had said, “Captain Updike. A warrant has been issued for your arrest. The City of Light does not negotiate with terrorists. I am authorized to tell you that any action by your followers, overt or otherwise would be considered an act of war. The Westprime Defense Forces are on high alert and await orders. You have twenty-four hours to turn yourself in to Central Authority.”
Updike had reached out to his first recovery for support. Updike loved Oliver Purdue deeply, and had come to respect him like no other. Like many of the dead, Oliver had looked into his former life and found the doors closed. But instead of sinking into despair, Purdue had determined to make his death a new beginning. He didn’t speak about his past and Updike didn’t press him. The result was that Oliver was a mystery. Updike had often mused that were he not crazy, he would find the dead man’s dark eyes a terrifying thing to look upon. Instead, Oliver’s charity and compassion buoyed him up.
Updike remembered passing through a small town late that morning. It was deserted as most were. The
