The Undertakers: End of the World (28 page)

My mom was there as well. She was lying on her own cot. Even in the dim light cast by a single stubby candle, I could tell she’d been crying. When she saw me standing there in the open doorway, the ache in her eyes almost broke my heart.

For a long minute, the two of us just looked at each other.

Then, feeling less awkward about it than I thought I would, I opened my arms.

Sobbing, she stood up and came into them.

All my life, my mother had hugged me. She’d hugged me plenty. She hugged me when, as a five-year-old, I fell off my bike and skinned my knee. She hugged me when, at ten, I scored four goals in a single soccer game. When I was a little kid I’d loved those hugs, lived for them. When I’d gotten older, they’d started to annoy me, even embarrass me, something to tolerate, not enjoy.

But this was the first time—the very first time—
I’d
ever hugged
her
.

Don’t know what I mean?

Trust me. Someday, you will.

“I don’t want you to do this,” she whispered.

“I know,” I whispered back. “But I have to.”

“I can’t lose you. Not again.”

“You won’t,” I promised. It was a lie I’d told before. Well, not a lie, since she
hadn’t
lost me, though I didn’t dare tell her how many close calls there’d been. Maybe it was more like an uncertain, but hopeful truth.

After all, I didn’t want her to lose me again either.

She pulled back and wiped her eyes. “I feel like I’ve failed you.”

“Failed me?” I echoed, honestly surprised. “How do you figure that?”

“Well, I’m your mother! You’re a thirteen-year-old boy. I’m supposed to protect you.”

“I’m fourteen,” I reminded her with a small smile. “And you
have
protected me. I’d never have gotten through Dad’s death without you. But now it’s my turn to protect you … you and Em. And, speaking of that, you two should go home. It’s safe there now, and Emily’s spent enough time sleeping down in this dungeon.”

She shook her head. “Don’t we have to stay, at least for a little while longer, for the investigators?”

“Agent Ramirez says the best thing to do is for everyone to split Haven. You’ll get questioned, no doubt about it. But, it’ll come later, after whatever Mitchum says at his press conference. After more of the truth has come out.”

She nodded. “How should we leave?”

“Ask Ramirez. I bet he’ll trip over himself getting you both back to Manayunk.”

Mom almost smiled at that. “He’s a good man,” she said.

“Yeah,” I said.

“A very good man.”

“I know.”

“After all this is over, he and I might … see each other,” she said. The whole Step-Dad Hugo Thing was one of the details I’d left out of my debriefing.

“I figured,” I said.

“He’ll never replace your father,” she told me, a plea in her voice. “I hope you understand that.”

I nodded, because I
did
understand it. “All he can do is come after him.”

“Do you
mind
, Will?”

I looked at her. My father had been gone for almost three years. For the first time, it occurred to me how lonely those years must have been for her. “I guess not,” I replied.

“Thank you. I wish you’d come home with us.”

“I’ll meet you there when it’s over.”

As she nodded again, resignedly this time, I looked past her, at the small figure sleeping so soundly on the cot. “She turns out
amazing
, Mom,” I said wistfully. “Emily, I mean. You have no idea.”

My mother’s face crumpled. “If she’s even half as amazing as you, I’ll be truly blessed.”

And that, I knew, was as close to “parental permission” to save the world as I was likely to get.

I got back to the Infirmary a few minutes early. No one was there except Amy. She’d packed everything we’d need, or at least
thought
we’d need, into a beaten up leather pouch that I knew had belonged to Ian McDonald, her mentor and Haven’s first medic. Now she sat on one of the Infirmary’s rusty old chairs, staring at nothing, lost in thought.

But when she saw me, her small round face lit up in a gentle, welcoming smile.

“There’s my angel,” I said with a grin that I only had to force a little bit.

She immediately blushed. “I swear … I didn’t know it was me.”

“Of course, you didn’t. You hadn’t done it yet!”

She considered this. “I don’t really understand all that time stuff.”

“Who does?” I replied. “Um … you know, Amy … you could skip this. You could still go to the hotels with the others. With luck, you might be home by this time tomorrow night.”

She shook her head.

“Why not?” I asked.

“You might need me,” she replied.

And I supposed that we might. Even so—

“What about your folks?” I asked, suddenly realizing that I knew nothing about Amy’s home life.

“My dad’s in the army. My mom’s in Heaven.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

She shrugged. “I don’t really remember her, and I’m pretty sure my dad’s shipped out somewhere.”

I blinked. “I doubt it. You disappeared, the way all Undertakers disappeared, what? Nine months ago? Around the same time I did. I’m sure he went nuts looking for you. Probably still
is
going nuts.”

Another shrug, but no reply. Then, after a long, very Amy-esque pause, she asked, “What was she like?”

“Who?”

“Me … in the future.”

“She was brave and smart,” I said. “And beautiful.”

She blushed again, her face turning almost scarlet. “How did she die?”

Sometimes the truth does nobody any good. “I don’t know,” I replied. “She was defending the new Haven against the Corpses, fighting alongside Emily and my older self. Beyond that …” I shrugged helplessly.

Amy seemed pleased by my answer. When I heard footsteps entering the Infirmary and turned to see who it was, I noticed that the girl seemed to be sitting up a little straighter.

Good.

Alex Bobson strolled in.

Not so good.

He didn’t so much say hello as grunt at me.

“You got everything you need?” I asked him.

“Wouldn’t be here if I didn’t,” he said. Then, eyeing me up, he added, “You sure about this?”

“No,” I admitted.

“Didn’t think so.”

“Can I ask you something?” I said carefully.

He paused and eyed me. “What?”

“What’re you gonna do? When all this is over, I mean?”

“Do?” he asked warily. “Whadya mean?”

“Where you gonna live?”

“Oh.” And, just like that, his whole demeanor changed. He suddenly looked less angry and more tired. “I got grandparents,” he said. “And an uncle in Baltimore. Guess I’ll land with one of them.”

“That sucks, Alex,” I told him.

“Yeah.” he said.

“Any chance you and me might … I dunno … keep in touch?”

He scowled at me for a long, uncomfortable moment. “What? You wanna be my Facebook friend or something?”

I didn’t reply. I did my best not to fidget.

Finally, he said with a half-hearted shrug, “Sure. Why not?”

And, just for an instant, I saw in his face
another
Alex Bobson, one who was older but not burned. One who wasn’t a jerk.

“Okay,” I said.

And that’s when Tom, Sharyn, Helene and Jillian showed up.

Immediately, the chief came over to me and asked, “You said your goodbyes to your mom and sister?”

I nodded.

“Cool,” he said. “‘Cause Hugo just split with ‘em. He’s taking them both home. Got ‘em out just before the net completely closed around City Hall. Said to tell you that he’ll stay with them until you get back. Said for you not to worry.”

Despite myself, I smiled a little at that.

A good guy.

“Got it!” Steve exclaimed as he marched into the Infirmary with Burt in tow. His brother was carrying some sort of gadget. It looked kind of like a Super Soaker, except that it was made of brown metal. Copper, perhaps. It had a reservoir on the back that held maybe two quarts of liquid, and which was plugged into a long tapered gun barrel. Beneath this barrel was a trigger assembly, and a grip that had been carefully wrapped in black electrical tape.

“What
is
that?” I asked.

“It’s an ice beam,” Burt announced proudly.

“No, it’s not!” his older sibling exclaimed. “I call it a Binelli.”

This was after Chuck Binelli, Burt’s best friend and one of the Undertakers who died last night during the Corpses’ final invasion of Haven. A really great kid, but one I somehow hadn’t managed to properly mourn yet.

My own best friend’s death was still too painful.

Steve continued, “It fires a stream of liquid nitrogen up to thirty feet … which, from what my future self told Will, should be more than enough to reach the Eternity Stone.”

Tom asked, “You keep liquid nitrogen in Haven?”

“Oh, sure,” Steve replied matter-of-factly. “I’ve had it on hand for quite a while. It has many scientific applications.”

“Jeez,” Helene muttered.

Tom asked, “But where was this … Binelli last night? We could have used it.”

“It didn’t exist then,” Burt said.

Then Alex Bobson chimed in. “I helped make it. Wasn’t hard. Steve gave me the specs, and I put it together from spare parts. Most of it’s just repurposed copper piping welded to an old Coleman propane tank.”

“Cool!” said Sharyn with a grin.

“I’m impressed,” Tom remarked. “And you figure this … Binelli … can ice the Anchor Shard?”

“It’s an educated guess,” Steve admitted. “But since we don’t have anything like an ‘electric javelin,’ it’s the most promising approach. Liquid nitrogen is extremely, dangerously cold … and it’ll freeze pretty much anything it comes in contact with. Once frozen, the crystal
should
become brittle enough to shatter under its own weight. No way to test it, of course. So I guess we’ll just have to hope for the best.”

“That’s a small gun,” Tom pointed out. “The Eternity Stone’s supposed to be pretty big, ain’t it?”

“Presumably. Which is why we’ve brought four more tanks of liquid nitrogen just like this one. Each is good for about a sixty-second blast and they’re very easy to swap out. But if it turns out that’s not enough, then I’m at a loss.”

Four tanks of liquid nitrogen.

Would
it be enough? I wondered. How awful to make it all the way to that other world only to find out we couldn’t do what we’d gone over there to do.

If only we had that stupid javelin!

Two plus two equals Fore.

“So,” the chief said. “We’ve got a cracked anchor shard, a grounding system that might blow us up, and an anti-crystal gun that ain’t been tested. Sounds to me like we’re ready! Let’s split. Right now. All of us.”

“And go where?” Helene asked. “We’re gonna want plenty of space and privacy.”

The chief smiled. “I know just the crib. The only problem is how we’re gonna get there!”

Back to the Beginning

As usual, Tom was right.

Haven was now surrounded by Philly cops, FBI agents, the National Guard, and lots and lots of reporters and T.V. news vans, all of whom were trying to understand how the decomposed bodies of fifteen hundred police officers had ended up crammed into an all-but-forgotten sub-basement of City Hall.

It was, by far, the single largest heap of cadavers in the whole citywide mystery, and so drew a lot of attention.

This meant that, if we wanted to sneak out, we needed to find a route past the army of grown-ups surrounding the building. And, with all of us gathered in the Infirmary, Tom was finally forced to admit that he’d struck out on that score. Every entrance into Haven was choked with vanquished Corpses. Even our emergency exit, which led up into City Hall proper had turned out to be a dead end. The Special Agent in Charge that Ramirez described had turned the building into her temporary HQ.

Every floor was flooded with FBI types.

We were completely caged in.

Or were we?

“I might know a way,” I said. “But we’re gonna need a sledgehammer.”

So, Tom, Sharyn, Helene, Steve, Burton, Amy, Jillian, and myself all headed for Haven’s deserted cafeteria. Seeing it brought back memories of the meals I’d eaten here with friends I would never see again. But I shook the grief away—no time for it now.

At the back of the room was a wall, made of crumbling brick like the rest.

But I knew it to be right beneath City Hall Tower.

Alex showed up a couple of minutes later with two big sledgehammers, one slung over each shoulder. He handed one to Tom. Then he turned and looked at me. “You sure about this, Ritter?”

“Pretty sure,” I said.

“This could be a load-bearing wall. We could bring half the building down on our heads.”

I hadn’t thought of that. For several uncomfortable seconds, I didn’t have an answer.

So Helene piped up. “What choice have we got? Either we get out Will’s way, or we don’t get out at all, right?”

“Right,” Tom agreed. Then he stepped up and took the first swing.

The sledgehammer hit the bricks with a dull
clunk
. Masonry dust flew in every direction. “Y’all better stay back,” he told us, coughing a little. “This is gonna be messier than I thought. Alex, first sign that somethin’s gonna give, we all book it for the nearest exit and take what comes with the feds. Clear?”

“Clear, Chief,” he said. Then, as the rest of us retreated a few steps, he took his own first swing.

Another
clunk
. More dust. But this time one of the bricks broke away, disappearing inward and leaving behind a rectangular hole.

Waving Alex back, Tom stepped up with his pocketknife’s flashlight and shone it through the new opening. When he looked back at us, he was grinning. “And there it is!”

It took the two them no more than ten minutes to tear down a gap in the wall large enough to let us through with our equipment. Inside, we found what looked like an old storage room, one that hadn’t been used in years. But
I
recognized it. In three decades, this was where the spiral staircase leading up into Haven would begin.

Unless we change that.

Against one wall, stood the subway service door that Emily had, or would have, or would have had—
jeez!
—led me through when I’d first visited the future HQ.