City of the Dead (25 page)

Bates stopped in the middle of the hallway and exchanged wide-eyed looks with Branson and Quinn. "Are you sure?"

"Yes, sir. What should Newman and I do?"

"Stand fast, and keep me advised. I'll send some reinforcements down to you."

"This is getting fucking bad, man." Quinn moaned.

"We've got to alert everybody. I need the two of you to continue searching for Mr. Ramsey. I'll send you some help as soon as I can."

"What are you gonna do, sir?" Branson gulped.

"Call an emergency meeting."

The radio squawked again. Frustrated, Bates answered.

"This is Bates."

"It's Forrest."

"Did Doc Stern get you fixed up?"

"Yeah. Any sign of the old man?"

"None. Obviously, he's somewhere in the building. Wake up Carson and DiMassi. Apprise them of the

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situation and get them involved with the search too. Tell them to meet Branson and Quinn on the top floor."

"But DiMassi's still quarantined."

"Then he'll need to get better in a hurry. Meanwhile, have Val sound the alarm over the P. A. system. I want everybody in the building, with the exception of those on watch, to assemble in the auditorium in twenty minutes."

"Before that, there's something else you ought to see."

"What, Forrest? I don't have time for anything else."

"I'm down on the thirtieth floor."

"And?"

"There's a shitload of zombies out there. That army you were talking about? I think they just arrived."

"I know. I'll be right down."

Forrest stood at the end of the hall, looking out the thirtieth floor's big observation window. The way the building had been designed, it seemed as if he was standing overtop the street itself. Raising the binoculars, he studied the skyline and the burning city below.

"Jesus Christ."

His dark skin had gone ashen. He was still staring when Bates arrived. Both stood speechless.

The occupants of Ramsey Towers slept.

Entwined in the arms of his lover, Carson dreamed of Kilker. In the dream, Kilker teetered on the edge of the roof, his body blanketed by zombie birds. But when he went over the side, Kilker flew instead of falling, flapping his arms and cackling as he hovered above the helicopter pad. He swooped toward Carson, dead but alive, pleading with Carson to have sex with him, just as Maynard had done with the corpses. Carson ran back inside the building, and stood there panting, his back to the

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door. Kilker clawed on it from outside. Carson whimpered in his sleep.

After falling asleep in the comfortable throes of her masturbatory post-orgasm, Nurse Kelli had a nightmare as well. In it, she was walking down the halls of the Mount Sinai Hospital in Queens, where she'd worked before the world fell apart. The lights still worked, the rooms buzzed with the sounds of equipment, yet the hospital was deserted. Her heels echoed in the silent halls. Someone had painted the word HORROR on the walls in blood, over and over again. She touched one wall and her fingertips came away sticky. She was still wondering what it meant, when a zombie lurched out of the ICU and rasped, "I will show you horror, wench." Kelli woke screaming, and couldn't fall back asleep.

Steve dreamed of his son. They were in a field near their home in Ontario, and his son was flying a kite. Steve glanced up at the kite, watching it soar through the clear blue sky. The sunlight blinded him for a moment. When he looked back down, his son was gone. Frantic, Steve ran through the field, calling his son's name. Unfettered, the kite rose into the sky, disappearing behind the clouds. Tears ran down Steve's face as he slept. He moaned his son's name, and then rolled over, entangled in the sheets.

Don's dream was an alcohol-fueled exercise in surrealism. In it, he was back at his home in Bloomington. He opened the refrigerator to make a snack for himself and Myrna, and a bologna sandwich started talking to him in a language he didn't understand. Despite that obvious handicap, he continued trying to communicate with it, until Rocky padded into the kitchen, rose up on his hind legs, and wolfed down the intelligent sandwich in two bites.

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Smokey thrashed, gripped in the throes of a nightmare. In it, he walked through Ramsey Towers's cafeteria. Etta and Leroy were serving their fellow occupants as dinner entrees. Alarmed, Smokey backed away. When he tried to run, the undead versions of his daughter and son-in-law blocked his way. Smokey's arm lashed out in his sleep, knocking the glass of water containing his false teeth from the nightstand.

Danny sighed happily. He and his father made a trip to the mall, where his daddy bought every comic book there was at the comic store, even the ones he wasn't allowed to read, like Hellblazer and Preacher. The two of them sat on the floor, eating potato chips, wiping their greasy fingers on their clothes, and reading the exploits of Hulk and Spider-Man and the Justice League of America. Then his mother and Rick walked in with even more comics. Carrie entered the room after them, carrying a stack of Godzilla movies. His new stepsister lay in the nook between her other arm and her chest. In the dream, all the grown-ups were getting along.

Jim did not dream. He slept the sleep of the dead, sound and still.

Frankie dreamed of Martin.

They stood in a forest. The lush greenery was aromatic and vibrant. Frankie could smell honeysuckle and maple and pine. A light breeze ruffled the leaves over their heads.

"You gonna talk this time, preacher-man?" Frankie asked.

"Yes."

"What is this place? Where are we?"

"Earth," Martin answered. "White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, to be exact. This is where Jim and I met.

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The town is down yonder through that hollow. And my old church, too."

"So what are we doing out here in the damn woods?"

"Waiting."

"For what?"

"For them."

The foliage parted, and a man, woman, and child emerged, cautiously looking around. The group of survivors crept past Frankie and Martin, seemingly unaware of their presence. Leaves rustled beneath their feet.

"Who are they?" Frankie asked.

"Survivors, like yourself. They haven't seen a zombie in over a week, so they think it's safe to come out."

"And is it?"

"No. As a matter of fact, it's even deadlier now."

"I guess so." Frankie smirked. "There's dead people walking around everywhere, not to mention the dead animals and shit."

"But that's just it, Frankie." Martin swept his hand around. "Do you see any zombies? Can you smell them?"

She sniffed the air and glanced around. She smelled pine and moss, but no decay or rot.

"No. Where are they? Waiting in hiding and planning on ambushing these folks? We should warn them if that's so."

"Let's follow them. I reckon you ought to see this for yourself. That's why I'm here. To show you what's to come."

"You're just as crazy now as you were when you were alive, Preacher."

Martin smiled. "Then you'll really think this is crazy. Look at them again."

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She did, and stumbled from the shock. The man was Jim, the child was Danny, and the woman-

--the woman was herself.

"Fuck it." Frankie ducked beneath a branch, walking directly behind herself. I'll play along. This is a dream anyway. At least there ain't no zombie babies in it."

"There are no zombies at all," Martin confirmed. "They're gone-moved on to the next world."

"So you gonna explain that? What happened? Did they all rot away to nothing or turn to dust or something?"

"The dead are not our true enemy. We named them zombies because we did not understand what they were. The creatures that possess the dead are demons called Siqqusim, and they are our true antagonists. They are older than man-far older. They were worshipped alongside Baal on the mountain of Peor, in the land of Moab."

"Moab? That anywhere near Baltimore?" Frankie quipped.

"Not quite. The Siqqusim held sway over the court of King Manasseh, and their cults sprang up in Assyrian, Sumero-Akkadian, Mesopotamian, and Ugaritic cultures. They were consulted by necromancers and soothsayers, before finally being banned. Secret worship of the Siqqusim continued into the Middle Ages, but by then, they'd been banished to the Void and were unable to hear their servant's entreaties."

"I don't understand a damn thing you just said. Get to the point, preacher-man."

"They wait until our souls have departed, and then they take up residence in the empty space left behind. Specifically-in our brains."

"Animals have souls too?"

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Martin nodded. "Every living thing has a soul. And that energy leaves the body at death. All the Siqqusim have to do is wait in the Void for one of us to die, and then they move right in."

"And that means we're fucked," Frankie said. "Because sooner or later everything dies."

Martin smiled.

"Everything dies, Frankie. But not everything has an ending."

"Who are you? Obi freaking Kenobi? What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"You'll understand in time. Meanwhile, let's get back to the zombies-or perhaps, more accurately, the demons. You're right. The odds look grim. The Siqqusim boast that their numbers are more than the stars, more than infinity. But the truth is something different. Although there are many more of them than there are us, they have a finite number, just like everything else. The only thing that's infinite is God. That's a fundamental rule of the universe, and even the stars bow to it. We only see the Siqqusim as infinite, because we cannot fathom their number. It's like trying to count the number of stars in the universe. Although they are finite, it would be impossible for us to do so."

"How do you know all this?"

Martin laughed. "I know many new things. There is great knowledge where I live now."

"Where you live now? In case nobody bothered to tell you, Martin, you're dead. You're fucking arm came off in that car crash. Jim split that gray old head of yours open like a watermelon when your corpse came back. Where you live, my ass. You don't live at all."

"But I do. I exist on a higher plane. That's what I'm

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trying to get through to you, Frankie. Our bodies are just shells, casings made of flesh and blood to temporarily house our souls. When our souls move on, these things take over the shell. But with the exception of Ob and some of the other major demons, they have to wait their turn."

"Who the fuck is Ob? That's the one the scientist told you and Jim about?"

"He's the one, the leader of the Siqqusim. You, Jim, and I actually crossed paths with him, though we didn't know it at the time. When we were all at the government facility in Hellertown. Ob led that zombie army. And soon, you will all meet him again."

"Well that's just wonderful. Looking forward to it. You got any other cheery news for me?"

She noticed that the forest had grown dark. Clouds blocked out the sunlight filtering through the treetops.

"There are ancient laws, set forth by God before this planet ever existed. These are not laws of physics or science, but of magic-which is a force more powerful than any other. And a force that sadly, mankind has forgotten."

"You know something?" Frankie observed. "You look, and sound like Martin, but you talk differently. Your words are different."

The preacher ignored her. "One of the laws is that once the Siqqusim have been freed from the Void, they reanimate the flesh and blood constructs of the planet they're on. But those host bodies have limits, and sooner or later, must give in to decay. Once the body is destroyed, the departed Siqqusim returns to the Void and awaits transference to a new host. The process begins anew. Finally, when they have destroyed the planet's

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lifeforms, they move on to somewhere else, just like locusts, and start all over again."

"So you're telling me that if we stay alive long enough, there's a chance these things will move on to another planet and not come back? That we can just wait for the zombies to rot apart and turn to dust and sooner or later, they'll leave us alone?"

"Yes and no."

"I'm gonna smack you, talking in riddles like that. And I guess you expect me to believe in little green men too?"

"There are a multitude of life forms out there, Frankie, and yes, some of them are green and others are what we would consider little. There are also life forms on other planes of existence, other realities. And Ob's kind has reign over them all. But I don't speak in riddles. The Siqqusim aren't the only demons awaiting release from the Void. There are other groups of creatures there; a second and third wave of demons that, according to magical law, cannot be released until a certain percentage of life has been destroyed. That is one of the reasons why the zombies are so intent on destroying us-so that this second wave of possessions can begin, and they themselves can move on to the next planet."

"How much? What percentage of the population has to die before this next wave begins?"

Martin shook his head. "I cannot tell you. It is forbidden. Look to your Bible. It is full of numerology. And there are other books too, tomes even older than the original Bible or Koran. Books like the Daemonolateria."

"Never heard of it."

"Some call it a spell book, but it is really nothing more than a book of laws. Everything, even demons, must obey the laws of the universe. There is a finite number of living beings on every planet, and once a percentage

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of those living beings have been corrupted, each new wave is free to attack."

"And I guess that new wave takes over the rest of us that are left alive?"

"No. The Siqqusim are given reign over mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians. But those aren't the only life forms on this planet, or on any other planet for that matter. Look around you."

Frankie paused.

"The plants. You're talking about the plants."

Martin nodded.

Around them, the greenery began to wither and turn brown. A leaf crumbled at her touch.

"Zombie plants, Martin? You've got to be kidding me."