The Dead

upon a garage that had escaped the flames; going through some of the boxes inside, they discovered some old coats that smelt of mothballs. The extra garments saw them through till morning, when they found shelter in the cellar crawlspace of an unfinished condominium, and built a fire in a trench dug for pipes. The smoke went out through a plumbing-hole in the concrete ceiling, but they guessed it wouldn’t be noticed; the wreckage of a collapsed second floor was still smoldering above.

The day passed uneventfully, the four of them taking turns on watch, peering out through a window in the crawlspace’s northern wall. A few corpses moved past in the distance, and one truck rolled sluggishly by. But the dead seemed largely to have deserted the southern part of town. Considering the scouring the area had gotten, Gary guessed they must have given up on finding new victims.

Once the chancred sun went down, the group left the warmth of their refuge and resumed their trek, pausing only briefly as reports that might have been shotgun blasts reached them from out of the east. Gary wondered if that might be Max. But there would be no point checking it out. If Max’s party had run afoul of the dead, they’d either be killed or long gone by the time Gary’s group reached the scene.

Pushing through a belt of charred pines, the four crossed over into Bayside Shores, coming within a hundred yards of the town’s train station. Dirty yellow in the wavering light of several tall street lamps, the building appeared deserted; the windows were dark caverns. Rearing up above the scene, the station’s water-tower, obsolete and abandoned, covered with rust-spotted white paint, drew Gary’s attention; huge black letters had been splattered across it, spelling out the words LEGION RULES. On either side of the words two great circles had been painted, spiked wheels like crowns of thorns.

Wheels and spikes, Buddy had said. Not really a trooper at all…

“What do you think it means?” Linda whispered, pointing to the message.

“I don’t know,” Gary said.

“Wasn’t Legion the name of a demon?” Linda asked.

“Starting your religious riff again?” Steve asked.

“Yeah, Linda, come on,” Gary said. “Is it necessary to drag demons into this?”

“Would they seem out of place?” she asked.

“Depends on what you believe already,” Steve said.

“Honey,” Gary said, “Why don’t you just stop it? You’re not going to convert us. I’d rather believe anything than this fundamentalist horseshit you’ve been peddling.”

“You keep acting as if I’m doing it just to be perverse,” Linda answered.

“Aren’t you?”

“Hold on there, Gary,” Steve said. “A touch of perversion’s not such a bad thing in a woman. They perform the unnatural acts, we get to enjoy them. Now you take Sally here…” He drew her up against his hip. “She’s a real broadminded girl. Isn’t that right, Sally?”

Sally pulled away from him.

“Asshole,” Linda said.

“The mouth on these Christians,” Steve chuckled.

They started forward once more, forging steadily through the ashen wilderland that had once been Bayside Shores, wordless shadows in the night.

Near midnight, they decided it was high time for a rest. Tired and footsore, they sought refuge in the Bayside Shores Methodist Church, an imitation Gothic structure built all of grey stone.

Inside, the glow of parking lot lights shone through stained-glass windows pocked with holes. All the pews, most of them partially burned, had been piled to one side. Black and sinister, a heap of a different kind occupied the center of the floor. Gary made out ribcages, vertebrae, blackened bones of all sorts. The smell was grisly.

“Are those human?” Sally asked.

“Can’t say…” At first Gary hadn’t noticed any skulls; now he began to pick them out, dog and cat skulls, cows’, horses’.

“Animals,” Steve said. “I wonder why they burned the bodies here?”

“Can’t you guess?” Linda asked.

Gary looked at her. “You tell us.”

“Remember the man with the Madonna hanging from his neck?”

“Well?”

“They did this to desecrate the church. Look.” Linda pointed to the back of the building. A large inverted cross leaned against the wall. Something was tied to it, pale and flabby-looking. At that distance, it was hard to tell, but Gary thought it was an inflatable sex-doll.

“One of those emergency dates,” Steve said, squinting. “At least our friends have a sense of humor.”

“Think it’s funny, huh?” Linda asked, staring at him with something that might’ve been rage.

“Yeah, kind of,” he said. “Nice to know we’ll still be able to make jokes after they catch us.”

“You sick bastard.”

“You know what? I happen to think our sense of humor’s one of the things that keep us human. Even in situations like this. Looks like you’ve lost yours, though.”

Linda looked away from him, simmering, arms folded on her chest.

“Gary,” she said, “doesn’t it make any difference to you that they’re enemies of God?”

“Hell, so am I,” Steve said. “And Gary likes me just fine. Don’t you, Gary?”

“I’m more worried by the fact that they’re my enemies,” Gary said.

“Hasn’t it occurred to you that the two things are connected?” Linda asked.

“Connected how?” Gary asked.

“Doesn’t the Bible say we’re made in His image?”

“Then so are those corpses,” Steve laughed. “Anyway, so what?”

“Maybe attacking us is one way of spitting on Him,” Linda said. “Another kind of desecration.”

“Then He really should keep track of what His images are up to,” Steve answered. “And if He wants to convert me, He should send another image besides you.”

“If He came down in person, would it matter?”

Steve shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t like the SOB very much. He makes such nasty things.”

“Like you?”

“Getting more personal all the time, aren’t we?” Steve asked. “Maybe you should save all that hate for those things out there.”

“I don’t know. I bet they don’t have any choice anymore. But you’re still one of us.”

“Meaning I’m just as bad as they are, but I’m doing it deliberately?”

“Give the boy an A for comprehension,” Linda replied.

“Linda, that’s just plain fucking nuts, and you know it,” Gary said.

Steve grinned. “Hell, maybe she doesn’t. And I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if she’s wrong about our friends out there, too. Freedom isn’t something you can just take away. It’s a state of mind. You can only give it up of your own free will. And if you can do that, you can have it back again. Freedom is forever.”

“Thought a lot about it, huh?” Linda asked.

“You bet. I decided back in High School I was going to be totally free, so I had to think it all out, didn’t I? Realized that if you just say fuck the consequences, no one can make you do anything. You just retreat into yourself, and in there, no one’s got any say but you. The most they can do is kill you, but even then, you’re not working for them. It’s like that Ben Shahn poster, you know? ‘You can shut me up, but you can’t make me say what you want’. Or think what you want.” He looked up at the ceiling and laughed. “Listening, God? Do your worst.”

“So why do you think they’re trying to kill us?” Linda asked.

“Because they get off on it,” Steve replied. “That’s why I ‘d be doing it. What else is there for them to get off on?”

“But what if they’re being compelled? What if they’re being tortured, so they’ll hate anyone who isn’t?