The Undertakers: End of the World (16 page)

Now.

Keeping so low that my back hurt, I darted out from behind my stump and moved along the blasted earth until I reached the West Wing’s rear door. I didn’t think it would be locked. With so many Corpses guarding it, why bother? But I’d been wrong about stuff like that before.

This time, I was right.

I opened it.

And bumped straight into a deader.

He was a Type Three, his body bloated and purple, his eyes bulging from the trapped gasses in the tissues behind them. At the sight of me, those milky eyes widened even further. His mouth moved in a slow, predatory growl, and his hands, both the size of oven mitts, reached for me.

Boy,
he said in Deadspeak.

I tried to think of a snarky reply. But he’d startled me, so I simply Tased him. His limbs stiffened and he toppled backward, falling across the width of the narrow landing and then sliding, toboggan-style, down a long flight of wooden stairs.

Nervously, I glanced back out the door, but the Corpses in the square were still busy with their radios, scanning the surrounding streets for some further sign of attack. One of them headed toward the rear door of Independence Hall proper, probably to report the attack, as well as the equipment malfunctions.

So, the good news was that I’d found my way to the basement.

The bad news was that they now knew
someone
was around.

I pressed the
5
button on my pocketknife, activating its own LED flashlight. After the EMP, it would be the only piece of working electronics for blocks around.

A dead giveaway if I was spotted.

But I needed the light.

Using it, I peeked into the large dark room through the doorway to my left. It stood empty. No furniture. No Corpses. In my day, this had been where a copy of the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution were displayed, along with the silver inkwell used to sign them. All of that had apparently long since disappeared.

Forgotten history.

With a small shudder, I followed the still convulsing deader down the steps. Once there, and with him glaring helplessly up at me, I pulled out another
Maankh
and dusted him. Didn’t want to waste it, but I had no choice. If I had incapacitated him some other way, he would have telepathically started screaming for help—and, while the Corpses might know I was around, I didn’t need them finding out exactly where.

Independence Hall’s basement consisted of a chain of low brick chambers, one after the next, separated by archways. The first thing that struck me was how cold it suddenly felt; I could even see my breath. Looking around, I spotted the cause. The room I was in had some kind of freezing unit in the middle of it. The machine had, of course, been fried by the EMP, but cold vapor still fluttered up from its open pipe ends.

It seemed a strange gadget for dead people, who didn’t feel either heat or cold, to bother installing. But then I stepped through the archway into the next chamber and shone my pocketknife’s light on the reason.

Bodies. Dozens of them. All hanging from meat hooks fastened to the ceiling. All kept fresh by the cold. Good thing I’d zonked that last Corpse instead of just trapping him. He’d simply have Transferred to one of these cadavers and come after me again, this time in a newer, stronger host.

Lucky.

But then I hold the record for being lucky when I’m doing something stupid.

I really do. Ask anybody.

As I walked through the jungle of bodies, my disgust mixed with my anger. These were
people
! Every single one of them had been born, lived, and died. And this was where they’d ended up. Not in a grave with a tombstone announcing who they were and when they’d passed. Not as ashes in an urn placed atop someone’s mantle. But
here
, in Corpse Helene’s cadaver warehouse, waiting to either rot away or be possessed and used by a monster.

It was sickening.

William had told me that, earlier in the war, the deaders had actually herded human beings, like cattle, to keep the Corpses supplied with bodies to wear. Well, this late in the game, it looked like that strategy had changed. After all, with humanity only hours away from total extinction, why bother keeping and feeding prisoners when you could just kill them, hang them up, and then forget them until and unless their cadavers were needed?

Efficient. Practical. Ruthless.

And it seriously
pissed
me off!

Up until that moment, a part of me hadn’t really believed that William’s Project Reboot could succeed. And that nagging doubt had only gotten worse when three of the six remaining Undertakers had gone off to somehow snatch the Anchor Shard from around Corpse Helene’s neck, only to then find out they were walking into a deader trap. I mean, if time
is
like a river, then the current seemed to be pushing us hardcore toward the rocks.

But
now
—

Now I would see it done. Somehow, someway, I would rescue the Undertakers, retrieve the crystal, and then take it home. After that, I would open a Rift, cross the Void, and shatter the
Malum’s
precious Eternity Stone like a cheap mirror.

For the Burgermeister. For Amy. For the rest.

For Helene.

For me.

The next archway had been bricked up, with a modern wooden door set into the newly created wall. A door like that suggested something interesting behind it. So I went up and jiggled the knob.

It didn’t turn.

Hitting the
1
button on my pocketknife, I worked the lock. It surrendered after just fifteen seconds. Then, shutting off my flashlight, I carefully and quietly opened the door a crack.

Inside, I found a small room with two other entrances. In the center of it was a narrow cot like the ones in Haven. And lying on her back atop that cot was a woman in her forties. She was clearly unconscious, her body limp. Tubes and wires ran from her arm and temples to monitoring machines and what looked like an IV drip.

The room was lit by a single arc lamp, which told me that someone in the building had replaced the fuses my EMP had blown.

I was running out of time.

Three Corpse guards stood around the cot, somehow managing to look both bored and menacing.

Slipping silently into the room and keeping to its shadows, I spared a moment to look—to really
look
—at the woman on the bed.

It was Helene.

Not
my
Helene, of course. This woman was older than my mom. But the face was the same. The nose. The cheekbones. Even her hair looked just like my girlfriend’s, except for the strands of gray.

Rescuing her had been the first thing on my to-do list. And here she was.

Time to go to work.

Table Turning

I only had four
Maankhs
left, and I really didn’t want to use them up. But I had three Corpses to deal with. None of them had noticed me yet, buried as I was in deep shadow. However, the minute I attacked, they
would
.

I had my pocketknife, Sharyn’s sword, and a saltwater pistol. Given that, I might be able to take down all three.

Might.

But then what? Trapped inside their stolen bodies, they’d simply start screaming out that telepathic S.O.S. of theirs, and I’d have twenty or thirty more of them on top of me in under a minute. No way around it.

Unless I used
Maankhs
to kill them all.

So I pulled out the first
Maankh
, pointed it at the nearest deader, and fired.

As he exploded in a
whoosh
of dust, the other two whirled toward me.

Taking a
Maankh
in each hand, I raised them and pointed.

“Say cheese.”

Yep, definitely not bringing my “A” game, snark-wise.

I fired and they both went the same way as the first.

Dropping the useless cylinders, I ran to the cot and fell to my knees beside it. For a few seconds, I just studied the woman, watching the way her chest rose and fell. She looked asleep, but I could tell it wasn’t a restful sleep. Her body kept twitching, her eyes rolling behind her lids. And she kept uttering these helpless gasps and moans.

She was, I knew, on the wrong end of an awful connection. Corpse Helene, who occupied the opposite end, was literally stealing Helene’s image, voice, and memories, using them to torture and torment Maxi Me.

The problem was I had no idea how to break the link, not without killing the real Helene Ritter.

So I gave her shoulder a gentle push. “Helene?”

Nothing.

I tried again, a harder push this time. “Helene!”

Still nothing.

Would turning off the machines help? Maybe disconnecting the IV? But, given how long she’d been like this, she probably needed the fluids they were pumping into her. And the machines were just monitors. At best, unplugging them would set off an alarm somewhere upstairs and bring the Corpses running.

Maybe William had been right. Maybe there was nothing anyone could do.

But I’d never liked that word: Nothing.

So I leaned close, bringing my lips right beside the restless woman’s ear.

“Helene,” I said. “Listen up. It’s Will. Not
your
Will. Not the Will you married and had babies with. Not
that
Will. I’m …” I floundered, grasping for words. “I’m the
first
Will, the one you saved that day at Towers Middle School. I’m the Will you brought into the Undertakers, kicking and screaming. I’m the Will you beat the snot out of because I was too thick to understand the reality of my situation. I’m the Will who let you get captured by Kenny Booth … but who came to your rescue, doing what you’d taught me to do.”

I paused, waiting for some kind of response.

Zilch.

So I took a deep breath and continued.

“I’m the Will who fought beside you, tried to protect you even though you didn’t
need
protecting … until you wanted to beat the snot out of me
again
for doing it. I’m the Will who got us off that South Street rooftop in what had to have been the stupidest way possible. I’m the Will whose life you saved—again—in the Capitol Crypt down in D.C. I’m the Will you confided in about your little sister, and who went away from you for a whole month to look out for her. I’m the Will who got her back to you safely. And I’m the Will you said you loved. I’m
that
Will. Thirteen-year-old … maybe fourteen-year-old Will.”

Again I waited.

Nada. Not even a flicker.

I heard footsteps.

I jumped to my feet and ran to the first of the room’s three doors and listened. Yep, someone was definitely coming, and from the shuffle in their gait, it wasn’t a living someone. I checked the knob. Locked. I checked the knob on the second door. That was locked too. Then I remembered the third door, the one I’d come in, and hurried over to shut and lock that one as well.

Except, even if whoever was coming didn’t simply have keys, all three locked doors were flimsy. Very flimsy.

I didn’t have much time.

No sooner had I returned to Helene’s bedside than the knocking began. It was casual at first, just some deader checking on his buds in the cellar. But when no one answered, that would change.

“Helene,” I said, unable to keep the edge of fear out of my voice. “I’m outta time. They’re coming. The Corpses. Now I know you’re trapped. I know you’re stuck in some terrible place where that monster who’s wearing your face is slurping up your thoughts and memories like some kind of vampire. I
get
that. But, I want you to listen to me.

“Fight it. We both know it can be done. Lindsay Micha did it. She was a strong lady, and you’re at least as strong as she was. Push back. Take as much from that wormbag as she’s taking from you. Become what she is. Can you do that for me?”

Nothing. No sound at all, except for the beep of the monitors and the hammering on the door.

“I know you can,” I told her, and I believed it. If anyone could overcome whatever
this
was, it was Helene Boettcher Ritter. “And, when you do, I need you to do something else for me. The Corpses are gonna be on me any second. They might just kill me outright, or they might take me to where Emily and Steve and
your
Will are being kept. Save me, Helene. One more time, I need you to save me.”

Then, on a whim, I took the last
Maankh
from my belt and slipped it into her hand, closing her pale fist around it. “I don’t know if you’ll know what this is,” I said. “I dunno if you’ll be able to use it, but I’m pretty sure
I
won’t get the chance. So it’s better off with you.”

Just as the door burst open behind me, followed by a rush of footsteps, I leaned close and gave the woman a kiss on her forehead. Not on her lips. That would have been
way
too weird. This wasn’t
my
Helene, after all, not by about three decades. But on the forehead felt okay. In fact, it felt right.

“See ya,” I whispered.

Four of them grabbed me, all big male Type Threes. They yanked me to my feet and turned me around just in time to see a fifth figure step through the open doorway and into the circle of arc lamp light.

Corpse Helene.

“Well, now, Mr. Ritter,” she said. “It seems your little invasion has ended in the only way it really could have. But, honestly, I’m honored. The boogeyman himself. And a genuine time traveler! Imagine!”

I couldn’t help it; I looked at her Mask.

This was the first time I’d seen her up close, and the sight shook me pretty bad. She looked so much like Helene. The same hazel eyes, the same smooth skin and light brown hair. Helene as a grown-up. Except, of course, this wasn’t her. It only looked like her.

This was a monster playing dress up.

My water pistol was in my waistband and my knife was in my pocket. But, even if I could somehow reach them, neither would do much good against this particular deader. Her host was a Type Two, which made her plenty fast and strong. On top of that, she was a Royal, and I knew from personal experience—the kind that you relive in your nightmares—that she could move in a blur and hit me hard enough to knock my head right off my neck.