The Dead

If there was grace to be had.

Linda and Father Chuck hadn’t disappeared. There was no flash of light, no miracle. The heavens were mute.

And now the dead hands were on them, on him, grabbing and ripping at his legs.

They dragged him backward over the step, smashed the pistol from his hand. Some held his arms while others tore open his coat and dry suit, raked their nails over his chest, probed the bullet wound there. He howled and kicked; they held him fast. Drunk with blood loss, he felt himself spinning toward the void.

He was almost over the brink when the flash stung his eyes, a flash of pure white light that seemed to turn the church into a cathedral of frost. Still gripping him, the corpses froze, motionless. Gary couldn’t see, but he knew what had happened. Linda, Father Chuck-one of them had made it, or both.

Whipping his head back and forth, Gary shrieked with despair. He’d been given his chance, and had thrown it away. Mind reverberating with that terrible knowledge, he felt the life draining from his flesh, his limbs turning to lead.

A half minute passed. The dead stirred, started in on him once more. That was when the darkness claimed him.

Laughing thickly, jacket sodden with blood, Steve had crawled over the threshold and pried himself up off the outside steps. He knew he was dying, but felt strangely untroubled.

Showed ‘em, all right, he thought. Showed ‘em but fucking good.

He’d paid them back for their betrayal, their arrogance. Who were they to turn on him? Insects to be stamped out at his pleasure. And if he was damned, so were they; he’d shot their shaman, cut off whatever hope they had left. They were nothing but dogs to accompany him at his viking’s funeral, and they were going out like dogs, cringing on their knees to the sadist in Heaven; but he’d go out proudly, standing erect and defiant.

Corpses poured across the street toward him. Even though he knew they wouldn’t hear him over their own screams, he pointed his pistol back at the open door and cried again and again: “They’re in there!”

The tide reached the foot of the steps and rolled upward. In his pain and dizziness, he half nursed a mad hope that they might recognize him as a kindred spirit, welcome him alive into their ranks, or at least kill him painlessly. He was, after all, already on their side…

Only at the end did he realize what his allegiance meant, that he’d made a covenant with agony beyond his wildest imaginings; that was when Ginger came flying up at him like an avenging angel, and his pride deserted him, and he pissed himself before she started in.

Pain stung Gary’s nostrils, the acrid smell of ammonia jolting him back to consciousness. They’d found some of his smelling salts, or perhaps had brought some of their own. What good was torture if the victim was oblivious?

Once they were satisfied that he was fully awake, they began where they’d left off with teeth and claws and blades, shredding, flaying, twisting. The pain was ferocious.

Yet in the midst of it all, realization struck him. There was something clenched in his pinned right hand.

The host. Salvation was an arm’s length away, and he couldn’t reach it.

“Jesus,” he gasped. “Jesus, help me!”

They hissed laughter at him, and one clapped a hand over his mouth, silencing him with its fetid scabrous palm. His tormentors resumed their sport.

As he sank toward a darkness deeper than mere unconsciousness, he saw, out of the corner of his eye, a corpse trying to force its way in among the ones working on him. The cadaver with its hand over his mouth jumped up snarling, and those holding his arm let go, pushing the interloper back.

With all the speed remaining to him, Gary thrust the host into his mouth. Instantly it began to melt on his tongue.

They saw him do it, were back on him in a flash. They pulled his jaws open and squeezed his throat, but he’d already swallowed. A tremendous surge of warmth filled his veins.

The hands on his throat tightened. The dead were trying to finish him before he could vanish. Cartilage gave, and his breath was choked off-

Only for a moment. The crushing pressure slackened. The bony hands melted away from his flesh as a great wind swept over him. Pain faded, and there was a fierce white fire rushing before his eyes.

He was out.

Chapter 26: The Other Side

The flame dissipated. He could barely see his new surroundings; it was as though he were looking through a pane of dark glass. Slowly his fire-dazzled eyes adjusted.

He wasn’t in new surroundings after all, but lying in the main aisle of St. Bonaventure’s. There was no sign of the dead.

He sat up, looking at the places were the bullets had struck him. There were no holes, no blood.

He got slowly to his feet. As he did so, he noticed something lying beneath him, and stepped away, gasping. It was a faint semitransparent body, a gelatinous-looking image of himself.

It began to quiver, and sank in upon itself, dissolving into a slimy puddle, the carpet swiftly absorbing it. The fabric showed a silvery, mucoid stain for a few moments, but even that vanished.

What had he just seen? The end of his earthly body, or of something even more fundamental? He didn’t feel like a new creation, merely a repaired one.

Yet that wasn’t the whole of it, he was sure, and his curiosity began to stir…what was he was going to experience? Before, salvation had simply meant survival. Now his sense of wonder was aroused.

He walked up the aisle toward the door. The light outside was clear and pure, without the bloody tinge of a dying sun; the circular stained glass window above the arch was a marvel of brilliant colors, cool deep blues and greens, reds and yellows so unmitigated they seemed to burn.

He reached the threshold.

Linda and Father Chuck were sitting halfway down the steps, backs to him. His wife seemed to be crying.

“Linda!” he cried, bounding down toward them.

They looked round. Linda jumped to her feet, wiping her eyes. Gary took her in his arms, kissing the tears off her cheeks and lips.

“I thought you… that you didn’t…” she faltered.

“Went right down to the wire,” Gary answered. “But the Man Upstairs came through.”

Father Chuck came up, smiling.

“God bless you, Father,” Gary said.

“He already has,” the priest replied.

Gary sucked in a long sweet chestful of warm summer air. “July again,” he said.

He looked out over the bungalows across the empty street. Their pastel colors seemed almost manically cheerful. Even at its best, Brittany had never looked so good. And yet, somehow the town was still itself; Gary had a strange feeling that it was perhaps more itself than it had ever been.

“Not that I’m complaining, Father,” he said, “but why does everything look the same? I mean, it’s not the same really, but a lot of it is, actually most of it is…” He paused, trying to frame a coherent question. “Are we still on Earth, or what?”

“I don’t know,” the priest answered. “But maybe the answer is yes. A new Earth. The old one remade. Or split off from Hell.”

“But have we been changed?” Gary asked.