The Dead

“They’re coming,” Max cried, throwing open his door. “Run for it!”

They piled out. A backward look showed Gary that several corpses were racing their way, the rest remaining to pull still-struggling people from the burning car. Gary guessed he and Max could outdistance the pursuers, but his wife was no sprinter.

“Linda won’t make it,” he said.

“We’ll lose ‘em in the trees,” Max said.

There was woodland off to the right, pines and hollies set close together. Max leading the way, the trio dodged off the road, following a tortuous, twisting course. But after fifty yards or so they halted, trying to stifle their panting.

They could hear corpses crashing along behind them, drawing nearer for a short time, then apparently losing the trail. The sounds of pursuit grew more distant, finally fading altogether.

“Max,” Gary gasped.

“What?”

“Are we awake? Are we hallucinating, or what?”

“Wish we were,” Max said.

“Jesus, Max, the whole cemetery was coming to life.”

Max wiped sweat from his forehead, laughed mirthlessly. “Maybe not all of it.”

“You’re sounding mighty cool about all this!”

Max eyed him evenly. “The rest of the world’s unraveling. Will it help if I do too?”

Taken aback by the reply, Gary fell silent. What kind of point had he been trying to make anyway? Did he really want his brother to be as vulnerable and terrified as he was?

“But what’s happening?” Linda asked, shivering. “Dead people don’t come back.”

“Sure fooled us, didn’t they?” Max answered.

Hollow with fear, Linda’s eyes sought Gary’s, seeking some kind of reassurance. But he knew there was no reassurance to be taken there. For her sake, he tried to crack a brave smile, but it was beyond him. A scant ten minutes ago, he’d seen his father rise dead and shrieking from the grave.

Chapter 10: Grave Matters

Deciding to put as much distance as they could between themselves and the road, they walked slowly eastward. They did not know what lay ahead. Would they find themselves in a development, or another section of the graveyard? River Rest was immense.

“Must be thousands of ‘em in this cemetery,” Gary said. “What are we going to do if they all come back? Where’ll we run?”

Max said nothing.

“What if they come spilling out of the graveyard?” Gary went on, a rising note of panic in his voice. “Do you think the cops can handle ‘em? The National Guard?”

Max halted. “Will you get a hold of yourself?”

“That’s easy for you to say!” Gary snapped. He felt like an idiot doing it, but he still wanted to get a rise out of Max, make him lose control, just one bit.

“No it isn’t,” Max said, voice simmering. “But you might get us all killed if you crack up. Understand?”

“I’m not going to crack up,” Gary said defensively.

“Then act that way.”

Ashamed of himself, Gary nodded. “Sorry. It’s just that… just that I’m…”

His voice trailed off as they started forward once more.

“Do you think they can be killed?” Linda asked.

“Are they alive?” Max asked. “That first one I fought-I gave it enough to kill three men. But they can be crippled, we know that much.”

“A statue fell on one,” Gary said. “Crushed its head flat. The damn thing pushed the statue off like it was nothing, got right to its feet.”

“I saw it too,” Max said.

“I couldn’t believe you took those two on,” Gary continued. “I was scared shitless. Me and Linda, we wanted to save Father Ted from Dad… from that thing… but we couldn’t get near them. The look on its face… how could you stand up to them?”

“I wasn’t going to watch you die,” Max said.

They pressed on a while in silence.

“What if this is happening all over the state?” Linda asked. “What if every graveyard in the country’s coming to life?”

“We don’t know that’s happening,” Max answered.

“Don’t we? What about all those murders? Those train-wrecks?”

“We don’t know who was responsible for all that.”

“Maybe they wanted recruits,” Linda said.

“You love to jump to conclusions, don’t you?”

“It’s all connected, just like I told you-”

She broke off. The trees were thinning out. Another broad stretch of cemetery showed ahead.

They stopped at the edge of the woods. Out among the monuments and mausoleums, nothing moved. There was no pounding from beneath the earth, but a dozen or so yawning holes were visible.

Off to the south stood three sedans and a black Cadillac hearse. Two bodies sprawled from an open Buick. Others lay scattered over the grass nearby.

“What do you think?” Gary asked.

“Haven’t been as active this side of the boneyard,” Max said. “I think we should work our way south along the edge of the trees, try to get one of those cars. We need some wheels.”

“What about the ones that were after us?” Linda asked. “They headed south. What if they’re still in the woods looking for us?”

“You’d rather cross the cemetery?” Max asked. “Must be a half-mile to that development over there, open ground all the way. I’d hate to be out there if the locals surface.”

“Where we going to go when we get the car?” Gary asked.

“Back to the Point,” Max said. “Dad’s shelter. Good place to think things through. Hell, we could hole up there for months.”

“But there are graveyards in Bayside Point,” Linda said.

“Four or five small ones. Two emergency morgues. And a hospital morgue. But there’s no place in the state where we’ll get too far from some collection of stiffs. Jersey’s been planting ‘em for three hundred years. On the other hand, we know where we can lock ourselves up in our own private fortress.”

They headed south, trying to keep one or two trees back from the greensward. Off in the development, columns of black smoke billowed up; there was a crackle of gunfire.

“Some of ‘em are over in there,” Max said. “If folks weren’t on guard, a few of those things could cut one hell of a swath.”

They drew nearer the cars. The vehicles sat on a strip of roadway running parallel to the edge of the trees. Between road and wood was a fifty-foot-wide band of grass studded with headstones. A single black-stone mausoleum stood not far from the cars. The burial the slaughtered mourners had been attending was on the near side of the road; a closed grey-metal casket, gleaming in the pale sunlight, still lay on its bier. Surrounded by dirt and ripped turf, six graves gaped like mine craters in the middle distance.

Max, Gary and Linda moved cautiously out of the pines, making for the cars. Two of the corpses on the grass before them were unmutilated, though huge clods of earth had been thrust into their mouths. The rest had eyelids or lips stripped away, fingernails pulled or bitten off, nostrils ripped from their faces; but if the discolorations on their necks were any indication, they’d been killed by strangulation.