The Dead

MacAleer.

When the last corpse lay writhing on the grass, they raced south again. The way was clear before them, but a look back showed fifty at least drawing in behind.

A thick pall of grey-blue smoke drifted onto Carter.

“Keep together!” Max cried. “Follow me!”

They plunged into it. Knowing they were hidden for the moment, Max led them across the street, in among the ruins. Emerging from the smoke, he rounded the corner of a garage-only to throw himself flat as a shotgun bellowed.

Raising his head, he saw a group of people ranged against the wall of the garage; a terrified looking middle- aged woman had a smoking Mossberg pump pointed at him.

“Don’t shoot!” he shouted.

The woman lowered her shotgun. A teenaged girl beside her held an over-under, and several other women had hatchets and carving-knives. Clothes blotted with bloodstains, two white-faced men sat with their backs to the wall.

Max’s companions arrived as he picked himself up.

“They’re coming,” Dennis told him breathlessly. “Heard that shot.”

Max looked west. Several high chain-link fences stood in the way. He started north along the garage wall.

“You’d better come with us,” he told the woman with the Mossberg as he passed.

“My husband…” she said, nodding toward one of the bloodstained men. “He won’t be able to keep up.”

“They’ll be all over you in a minute,” Max said over his shoulder, pausing.

“You have guns!” she answered. “Stay with us. Maybe we can hold them off-”

“I’m not getting my people killed,” Max said, pressing on.

Father Chuck ran up beside him.

“Max, we can’t leave them to die,” he panted.

“What good’ll it do if we all buy it?” Max asked.

“What kind of a Christian are you?” the priest demanded.

“Show me what kind you are, Father,” Max replied. “Stay here. Set me an example.”

Father Chuck fell behind. But Max didn’t look to see if he was going back.

Going through a gate in a tall hedge, Max led them past a swimming pool. A dead man lay by the pool-side, holding an axe, his face hanging over the edge, head surrounded by a dark blur of floating hair. Out in the middle, a severed arm in a dark blue sleeve squirmed on the bottom like a giant worm.

Following a driveway, Max came out between two fire-eaten walls and halted, looking east from behind an overturned pickup truck. Through the thinning smoke he could see shadowy shapes speeding mechanically south on Carter. He retreated, motioning his companions back into the driveway.

Shotgun fire from behind; fleshless screams of rage and delight. The other group had begun their last battle. How long would they hold them off?

Max looked round the truck again, back toward Carter. The corpses moving south had vanished. Time to go.

They headed west, deep into a grove of burnt-out hollies. Denuded as they were, the branches were still thick enough to provide some cover, particularly in the middle of the stand.

And all the while, the gunfire and the shrieking of the corpses intensified. Suddenly other voices started to scream, living voices. The gunfire died.

Striped with soot from limbs they’d brushed, the group soon reached a broad asphalt drive, and followed it back to a large two-story brick house that looked fairly intact. Max went up to the front door, pushed it open. Inside was a well-furnished living-room, the rear third of it buried under debris from a collapsed ceiling. Max guessed that the house had been torched from behind, and that a strong northwestern wind had kept the fire from spreading too far.

He signaled the others inside, then closed the door behind them. The MacAleers promptly collapsed upon the floor. Aunt Camille and Father Chuck sagged against a wall. Max smirked at the priest, perversely pleased that he hadn’t cast his lot with the other group; seeing Max looking at him, Father Chuck dropped his gaze floorward.

“We’ll hole up here for a while,” Max announced. “Wait until nightfall. If we ca-” He broke off as a raw cry of agony reached them, louder and more heart-wrenching than any they’d yet heard.

He swallowed, pressed on: “Those folks should distract them for a while. Maybe the corpses’ll think they got us.” He stationed himself at a window, watching the drive.

“But what if your father’s back there?” Dennis asked. “They’ll know we got away. They’ll probably comb every house in the neighborhood. We’d better keep moving.”

“Please, no,” Mrs. MacAleer groaned. “My heart won’t take it. At least give us time to catch our breath…”

“That may be all the time they’ll need to find us,” Dennis said.

Max shook his head. “We should stay put. My father might not be with that group.”

“But what if he is?”

“Then he’ll probably figure we kept moving. He must know we spotted him by the shelter, because we expected the trap.”

“God, I hope you’re right.”

“Do you really think we’ll be safe here?” Aunt Camille asked.

“We’re not safe anywhere,” Max answered. “But they must think they pretty much flushed the neighborhood out when they torched it.”

“What about those people we passed?” Dennis asked.

“As I said, the corpses might think that was us. If that doesn’t fool them, they’ll probably realize what they actually were. Stragglers on the run. No reason to comb the neighborhood again.”

“You always sound so sure of yourself,” Camille said.

“Sorry,” Max answered.

“You got young Dave killed, you know that?” Camille asked.

“Yeah. I took a calculated risk. I thought Gary had gotten a little trigger-happy. He thought so too at first. Is there anything I can do to bring Dave back to life? Please tell me.”

Camille looked away.

“I bet he’ll be dying in my dreams for the rest of my life,” Max said. “Does that satisfy you?”

“That might not be very long,” Dennis answered.

“Well, I’m damn sorry about that too,” Max said.

“Don’t listen to us, Max,” Camille said suddenly. “You’ve been doing your best for us, I know.”

Glad you think so, Max thought. Stubborn reflex had caused him to ignore his brother back in the culvert, and it had cost Dave his life. Max had carefully cultivated that reflex over the years, because he usually was right; the odds had never really caught up with him. Now they’d more than made up for lost time.

Just about murdered him yourself, he thought.

But worst of all was the possibility that he hadn’t merely gotten Dave killed. If MacAleer was right-and the fundamentalist’s theory seemed more horribly plausible all the time -Dave was in Hell now. Another mistake might consign the whole group to damnation. Max felt as though he were bent beneath a vast flat stone. And after Dave’s death, he didn’t know if he was the man to bear that terrible weight.

Yet what other choice did he have? He might collapse under the burden-but could any of the others take his place? He doubted it. He was right most of the time. Half the world had been slaughtered, but his group was still alive. If they’d listened to Buddy, they would’ve been killed, Max was certain. He was just as sure they should stay put now. There was no comfort to be taken in any of that. It simply meant he had to continue beneath the stone.

The day wore on. For whatever reason, the dead never investigated the house-though a huge troop of them, by the sound of it, pushed by to the south.

Dusk gathered, deepened into night. The group readied to leave.

“We’ll head south till morning,” Max said.