The Dead

You won’t have a chance, whispered a voice in his mind. He’s got the goods on you for sure.

“He?” Gary asked aloud, wondering for the first time what he was so afraid of.

The wind brought a far-off grinding that sounded like huge rusty gears; unbidden, the image of a state trooper flashed into his head.

Guilty conscience? The trooper asked, turning slowly toward him. Haven’t been speeding, have you sonny? You should see what they do to speeders where I come from…

But before Gary could see his face, he realized the cop wasn’t Him; the image vanished from his mind. The grinding sound faded.

He saw it all, Gary, the whispering voice went on. He knows.

“What is He, Santa Claus?” Gary asked.

God, you’re stupid, said the voice. I’m going to see if I can get out of here. Adios, sucker!

“Like a rat leaving a sinking ship,” Gary said, and laughed. Then the question occurred to him: what sinking ship? What strange little mind-games was he playing with himself?

The hell with that. What was he doing stark naked in a desert lifted straight out of the Sistine Last Judgment?

“Oh, what the fuck,” he said. “It’s just a dream.”

The voice answered faintly: You wish, moron.

The ground moved beneath his left foot. He hopped aside, staring downward.

Dirt bulged. The protrusion collapsed, then swelled again. The brown dome split. Dirty white objects pushed up between the clods. Momentarily Gary realized what they were: bones. Human finger-bones. A skeletal hand was thrusting itself out of the ground, clawing toward the sky.

His first thought was of that old spiritual: Them bones, them bones, them dry bones… Then his mind flashed back to the horror in the funeral-parlor chapel.

Didn’t you just leave this party? He asked himself. But that was a dream. Only a dream. This was-

Real.

He fled, but everywhere those tiny hillocks were rising from the desolation as far as the eye could see. He could hardly run without stepping on them, feeling those bony fingertips jabbing up into his soles; his skin was broken in a dozen places when at last he fell screaming.

Swaying and twisting like plant-stalks in time-lapse photography, two fleshless arms rose from the earth in front of him, up-tilting a slab of slate; the slab toppled inches from his nose, and a skull heaved up into view, death’s face grinning into his.

He could feel bony hands scrabbling round behind him, fumbling at his heels. He got to his feet, trembling violently, ignoring the pain in his soles. All around him, the hillocks had been broken open by the heads and shoulders of the fleshless dead. He was completely surrounded. Soon there was hardly room to stand, let alone run. Earth dropping from their limbs, they climbed out of their graves, standing shoulder to shoulder with him, as if at attention.

The wind grew colder, more vicious, whistling through their ribs and teeth. Dust-devils swirled and danced among the bony ranks; a fringe of black cloud came rolling across the grey sky like ink in water.

Shivering, teeth chattering, Gary stood there alone among the skeletons. But his fear of them receded. Something else was coming now, he could feel it, something beside which they were no threat at all…

It was Him.

White and fierce, light flooded across the landscape of skeletons. Gary and the dead turned.

A mighty glowing throne had appeared, looming like a mountain on the plain; two huge creatures in white metal armor flanked it, bearing what might have been flaming swords. Their bodies were human, but had feet like bulls’ hooves, eagles’ wings, leonine heads. Searching the dead multitude with their stern eyes, turning their heads from side to side, they left eerie after images in Gary’s brain, their countenances shifting blurrily back and forth between man and bull, lion and eagle, as if somehow these beings were all four creatures simultaneously.

He looked up at the figure seated on the throne. As brightly as the throne glowed, its occupant outshone it; Gary squinted, shading his eyes. It was intensely painful to gaze into that torrent of light, but he looked long enough to make out the figure’s shape.

One like a son of man, he thought, pulling his gaze away, wincing. His fright mounted ferociously. He knew now what was happening, where he was.

And he was in the very first rank before the throne. He had been surrounded by the dead before, but nothing now stood between him and judgment. No bail, no appeals…

He’s got the goods on you, he told himself. You threw your life away. Thirty-two years wasted, worse than wasted. He has you cold…

The being on the throne glowed brighter for an instant. Still wincing, Gary saw many of the dead step forward, as though they had been summoned.

The light flared again. When it faded, the skeletons were clothed in flesh, he was sure of it, even though they vanished before he had barely more than a glimpse. Their lives and humanity had been restored. They had been found innocent.

Another flash. The remaining dead in the front rank advanced. But at the next flare, they dropped to their knees, still bare of flesh. They began to scream, and Gary knew that sound, though the last time he’d only heard it ripping from a single throat, as his father punched his way out of his heavy bronze prison…

Some of the skeletons fell to fighting one another. Others raked the earth with their clawlike fingers or rose shrieking, shaking bony fists at the judge on the throne.

Sweeping their burning swords, the lion-headed creatures came forward, and the skeletons fled wailing, forcing their way into the dead multitude. One came hurtling straight at Gary, silhouetted against the glow of the throne, light pouring through its ribs. But at the last instant it veered off to the right, and Gary felt a great coldness sweep by him.

He looked back up at the judge.

Yet another flare; this time he heard the summons. His name had been called, not Gary Holland, but his true name, the one that defined and compelled. He had never heard it before, yet he recognized it instantly, feeling its terrible power. Shaking his head, he struggled to resist, to remain in place, but his flesh wouldn’t obey him. The innermost logic of his being had been mastered.

One step, and the compulsion faded. The point had been made. He’d come to a pass where his choice was irrelevant. He riveted his eyes on the ground, trying to ignore what was happening to him, to deny his awful guilt. As the judge began to speak, Gary clapped his hands over his ears, but the words still penetrated, awesome in their authority:

“You have been weighed in the balance and found-”

A titanic hollow rumbling blotted out the voice. The ground trembled, shaking Gary off his feet. The light from the throne vanished. Darkness descended once more.

But the murk was warm now. The wind was gone.

Gary felt the reassuring softness of quilt against skin. He was safe in bed.

He sat up, laughed as he realized it had all been a dream. None of it had happened… except of course for the earthquake.

The bed was shaking, travelling slowly across the hardwood floor like a bum piece on one of those old vibrating football games; a powerful rumbling was coming from under the house, as though a subway train were passing beneath. Venetian blinds chattered. Window-curtains swayed back and forth. Things skittered and danced on the dresser; a small mirror banged onto its face. Over on a chair, the lid of Gary’s suitcase thumped shut.

Gary turned toward Linda. She was awake too.

“It really is an earthquake,” she said.

Gary listened to the walls creak and moan. Were they about to collapse? How long would the quake last?