The Forsaken - The Apocalypse Trilogy: Book Two (25 page)

Updike had shuddered at the appalling
idea.

“I was lucky.” Oliver’s face rose in the
firelight. “Someone buried me with an old hunting knife. I could
hack my way through the lid of my coffin. But what about the
others?”

“Tragic.” Updike dreaded what he had to do
but he remembered the Angel whispering that he must raise an army
of the dead—and the meeting seemed more than coincidence. They
returned to Oliver’s cemetery pushing a wheelbarrow full of tools.
They dug at the freshest gravesite. By evening they had pulled
Muriel Thorn from the ground. She was in an awful state—being the
victim of a car accident, but Updike was so overjoyed by her
release that he welcomed her back with a hug.

The next day, they exhumed two more—blinking,
mouths open in mute horror—the corpses were pulled from their
graves. And it continued from there, the reborn helping with the
next exhumation. Updike’s workforce grew each day.

Some dead left to reclaim their old lives and
as time progressed terrible stories of rejection trickled back.
Updike’s force multiplied. With Oliver as his right hand man, he
worked his way across the state, and soon began sending exhumation
forces ahead into neighboring states. Soon others, many living,
took up the cause.

The exhumed were a dedicated and grateful
workforce, who existed on olive oil and little else. They could
eat, though there were no digestive processes. Some of the exhumed
were too frail to work or were dismembered. But these pitched in as
they could with anything from accounting to raising funds.

That was all so long ago, and his mission had
seen him build an army of workers that grew with each dig. He felt
great pity for those that rose without body or head, or who had
been killed by massive trauma, yet still retained some awareness.
In those cases he offered a choice. They could try to make the best
of it or they could be destroyed utterly by fire. Updike was
surprised by the number that chose a living death. The dead had
lost their faith in death.

In some cases the dismembered could be
stitched and glued back together, and the reattached parts would
function without much difficulty. Why? Updike soon stopped asking
why. He knew only that the world was a changed place, and so long
as there were needy dead people he would do what he could for
them.

He soon ran into trouble with the
Authorities. In those days, governments and their functioning
bodies were in transition, and so he didn’t worry overmuch about
red tape. But, he did have to account for dismembered body parts,
and brainless dead. These, the Authorities suggested, should be
relocated to special Internment Facilities. Updike suggested mass
cremation, since even dismembered parts were reanimated, but the
Authorities balked at such a final solution.

And with the extinction of earth’s bacteria
that fed on dead flesh, the problem grew to ghastly proportions.
The Internment Facilities were soon crawling with dead bodies and
twitching body parts. Sadly, there were many such facilities
operating by the time the problem was recognized. The end result
was that the living shunned the countryside. The idea of camping
and having your tent knocked over by a headless corpse was too much
for most.

Optimistically, Updike reassured himself that
the wilderness had been forsaken anyway. God’s word giving man
dominion over the animals had been revoked. The first days were
horrible. Animals both domesticated and wild attacked their former
masters. Pets were caged or destroyed. Others were released or
escaped. Farming became very dangerous.

As he worked, Updike watched the evolution of
a terrified culture. There were power struggles just short of civil
war, and realignment of alliances, often times with the public
wondering who was in charge. The living were barricading themselves
in walled cities. The dead within were treated sympathetically at
first but were finally restricted to special areas.

By the time Authority evolved into the
interconnected world giant it now was, it was too late to stop
Updike or his followers. When they turned to him the preacher was
the leader of a vast army. Digs had already been started under his
direction on the other continents. Updike said they would carry on
with their mission, but an Angel warned him.

“Disperse,” it said, and he immediately saw
the truth. Such a massive army of dead would terrify the living
into action. “Accidents” had already happened with Authority
Regulators destroying the dead.

Updike broke his army into smaller groups.
These moved to towns and villages that had been abandoned by the
living. He continued, taking his movement down into Mexico and
South America.

His mission unfolded over decades. The first
step was the gathering of his force. Whispered among the leaders of
the dead were promises of a new world unfolding for all. Updike
awaited a sign.

He was in Peru when it came. The preacher was
experimenting with a new technique for softening the ancient bodies
of dead Incas.

The Angels whispered three words:
It is
time
. Soon after Updike received an invitation to a conference
in The City of Light. He was invited to talk about his work. The
theme was
The Rebirth of the Earth Religions and the Death of
Science
.

Updike boarded the plane. That was the way
the Lord worked. There were no coincidences.

35 – Guardian

The Creature told him to keep grownups away
from the Nightcare, and that’s what he did. The little boy with the
lethal fist left Liz and the others to do their
wah-wah-wah
,
sorry Creature-boss but we lost the Squeaker. What’s her name, the
real-kid-kid, was too stupid to listen to us fighters and run so
the Toffers got her.

Conan flexed his shoulders. They were still
tight from all the fighting, and there were little prickly burns on
his cheeks where the Toffers’ boom-bomb sent off its sparks and got
into his helmet. That threw him off, like it did all the
fighters—and there were little green lights in front of their eyes
“like fairies” the girls said—and that let the Toffers get
away.

Conan and Big Henry did their best to keep up
to them and the Sheps but they moved fast once they all peeled
their skins. Even Conan couldn’t keep up, and he was the fastest
fighter in the Nightcare. So they hurried back and did their
reporting and
boohooing
but he couldn’t stand it so off he
went just so. Got some grub and a bit of whisky on his stings and
then ran and ran for the edge of it all.

He didn’t wait around while the others did
their head scratching and wondering and sniffling. Conan didn’t
have patience for that kind of yak yak and standing around
not-yakking just made his head think over the olden days. And
thinking of that just made him want to go out in the tunnels and
make chili sauce out of grownups. All those bad guys walking around
asking for trouble, and keeping boys in cages and doing the Devil
work on them.

The thought alone had him swinging his
die-flower around, scratching it on the stones in the tunnel. The
fist-kill was an idea he got from some old crazy movie about
another evil grownup who got burned up and killed but came back in
dreams to hunt the forever teens while they were fuckity-fucking,
as Big Henry called it. But
he
had a glove on his hand full
of knives and Conan liked the idea so much he made one. He didn’t
have a name for it yet, and everybody called it something
different. But there was a wooden grip he held onto inside a hockey
glove, and the whole thing was wired, and taped and screw-nailed
together.

There were five sharp blades now, from eight
to twelve inches long. There used to be six but that was too many
for the size of his fist and the length of his arm. He’d almost cut
off his nuts with the downswing one time so he had to trim the
lethal blossom.

But he liked taking the slash-fingers and
chopping them around in a grownup’s belly, or running them up his
legs into the crotch where all the bad business they did on Conan
came from. That was real fine and joyful cause they screamed and
screamed like the other boys screamed in the Bad house long ago.
Conan didn’t scream then. He hadn’t said a word since they first
got him and fucked him up.

But seeing the Toffers trying to hurt forever
kids just got Conan’s blood up and he’d already run to the edge of
the tunnels where he had hidey places, and flop-joints for snoozing
and spent the last two nights keeping a ear open for a tap-tap code
from the Nightcare or the big-step of a grownup blundering
close.

That morning he got lucky and did some wicked
cut-work on a bad guy who was walking around below ground with his
pecker out pissing. He wouldn’t have that trouble no more. Conan
danced in on him before he blinked his eyes, and he slashed his
guts until the spaghetti came pouring out. Then he stepped in while
the gray-hair was crying and gathering his guts into his lap, and
did a few wicked thrusts into the nuts until there was only blood
pouring out around hamburger.

Conan froze when he heard a sound. It was a
light thrumming noise like a big boot moving quietly over the
metal-grated walkways that ran the length of this section of
tunnel. Like someone was trying to be funny or sneaky like but made
a mistake.

And Conan was moving. His light running shoes
barely touched the grating underfoot as he flickered through the
darkness. There were always background sounds to hide the little
things, but Conan prided himself on being quieter still.

His senses were on high alert, all radar and
magnifying glasses, because where he was, many miles in from the
fight with that drunk guy, was too close to the Nightcare to allow
any monkey business. He thought it might be Toffers, since they’d
seen some only a day or so back; but he thought he’d investigate
before he sounded the tap-tap alarm.

It was pitch dark. The tunnels were
sporadically lit by dim odd and even lights overhead, where they
hadn’t burned out. Dark is how he liked it. If he needed the spark
and dazzle, he knew where the other fighters in the Nightcare hid
glow sticks all over the place in tunnels and sewers.

But Conan knew the dark spots well. That way
he could get in close, and see what he needed to see, or do what he
needed to do—just peek and sneak or slash and trash and gone! And
the dark spots always led up to the light ones, and that was good
because that was where most invaders waited and watched and worried
and blinked their eyes and peed their pants. It never took more
than a second for Conan to fly out of the darkness and do his
work—cut and scream and bye.

This section of tunnels was old maintenance
ways and stairs for a giant factory on Zero long ago knocked down
and built on. They’d left the tunnels though, and these linked up
to the sewers that ran all under the City of Light, some new and
some stinking old from the times before the Change. But these were
perfect places to hide the Nightcare, and even better places to
protect it.

Conan froze. Ahead of him in the dim light,
he saw a man. The man was tall and pretty thin. He wore a long coat
and some kind of weird high hat that had tattered bits hanging down
the back. Conan could see him at the crossing of two tunnels and at
the foot of a metal ladder that would lead up to a basement on
Zero.

Conan ran ahead. The fist-kill swung back. He
was out of the shadow and slashing. The long blades rang once,
twice and a third time. Parried and turned by a metal stick held in
the man’s hand. Conan did not wait or pause or think. He continued
running, took two leaps up the rungs in the brick and flipped
himself over backward, this time launched at the stranger’s head.
The die-flower flashed again, this time almost catching the man’s
bearded face, but ringing again once, twice and a third time on the
metal stick.

Conan let himself fall into the shadow,
rolled and then charged forward again hugging the edge of darkness
until he could burst out murder-hand poised and whipping
upward.

This time the blades were turned on the first
slash, they slipped past the stick on the second, and chopped into
the man’s calf on the third.

The stranger cried out, but whipped his metal
stick around and fended off Conan’s new attack. All three sweeps of
the fist-kill missed, and the stranger suddenly shouted strange
words. The metal stick in his hand burst into white flames, and it
was all Conan could do to avoid the eye-fire.

As it was, his peepers went covered in
blazing lights and starry and blinded. He tumbled and then ran into
the wall, head thumping. The man shouted something, but Conan
scurried blindly toward the tunnel of shadows he knew so well, and
was soon pelting away into the darkness.

He could barely contain a smile as his vision
came blinking back and as he heard the man follow limping now and
breathing harshly.

Conan would lead him a little farther. He
knew where he wanted to catch the man. There was a very dark
crossroads ahead where a sewer pipe hung over the tunnel. Conan
would get up there and wait, and then slash the man’s face and
throat with the die-flower and that would be that would be
that.

Still the man followed—the big stupid-stupid.
A quick glance back showed the light from the man’s stick. That was
good too, because Conan knew the stranger’s eyes would lean on the
light, and would go weak and wobbly in the shadow.

When he got to the crossroads, Conan easily
shinnied up a broken pipe and rolled onto the top of the sewer. He
laid flat and waited as the man’s footsteps approached ringing
hollow on the iron slats.

But the grownup must have paused or stopped
before entering the crossroads, because the light did not come
further. Conan could not see the man directly, but he could tell
the glowy eye-burn waited inside the tunnel and out of reach. And
then the worst thing happened.