The Undertakers (11 page)

“If they're so well set up,” Dave demanded, “how do we beat them?”

“By
understanding
them,” replied Steve. “And of course, by effectively arming ourselves.”

The Burgermeister clapped his huge hands. “Now that's more like it! Arm ourselves with what?”

Steve held up a green water pistol. “Saltwater. For some reason even small amounts of salt interrupt the control that the Corpses have over their host bodies, temporarily incapacitating them. A shot in a limb makes the limb useless for a while. A shot in the face blinds the Corpse, disrupting motor skills. Enough saltwater, in fact, has been known to force a Corpse to Transfer.”

“But it doesn't kill them,” the Burgermeister pressed.

“No—I'm afraid it doesn't.”

“So how do we beat these things,” Dave demanded, “if we can't even kill one?”

Steve said patiently, “If you have a question, could you please raise your hand?”

The Burgermeister glowered. Then with an irritated grunt, he raised his hand.

“Yes?” said Steve.

“What?”

“You have your hand raised.”

“That's what you told me to do!”

“So what's your question?”

Dave's face reddened. “I already told you my question!”

Steve blinked. “I think I forgot.”

The Burgermeister looked ready to explode. “How can we beat the Corpses if we can't even kill one?”

“Oh, yes. Actually that's a pretty good question.”

I leaned over and whispered to Dave, “Don't hit him.”

“Solving that problem is our highest priority,” Steve said. “And we're exploring a number of very promising theories. Maybe if any of you decide that field work isn't really your thing, you'll join the Brain Factory and work on it with me.”

“Not me,” Dave grumbled.

“Good call,” I muttered.

“I mean, this guy looks like the king of Nerdsville!”

That last had been said too loudly. Steve heard it and blanched. At the same time, Sharyn burst out laughing. Within moments the First Stop recruits were laughing too, but poor Steve looked like he'd bitten into something sour—

All of a sudden, I realized something.

The Undertakers were kids.

Kids. Every last one of us. Well organized, sure. Maybe even halfway capable. But
kids
—who could still be distracted by a dumb joke made about one of our members.

And with this understanding came an awful sense of dread.

We don't stand a chance.

After Hours

We returned to First Stop a short time later—once again bagged and bounced around in the van. After a dinner of nuked chicken pot pies, we all spent next the two hours in our dorms. Ethan couldn't stop yabbering about the Hackers and how cool that job would be, while Dave just stared unhappily at the little TV that came with our room, watching sitcom reruns.

“Doesn't even get cable,” the Burgermeister grumbled.

I lay on my cot, thinking about the day and wondering what my mom had made Emily for dinner that night.

For the umpteenth time, I considered sneaking out and calling her again. There must be a pay phone out on the street somewhere. Another Laundromat maybe.

Um…hi, Mom. It's me. I'm okay. I'm staying with some kids in Philly. We're kind of like an army, except I don't think we stand a chance. What? Oh,
didn't I mention that? See, there are these zombies. Except they're not zombies. They're kind of animated dead bodies that have been possessed by beings from another dimension. We call them Corpses, which I guess sounds a little—I dunno—simple, but what do you want? We're just kids, after all. Oh, and Mr. Pratt next door is one of them. So's my math teacher. And only kids can See them for what they really are. Well, actually, Dad could See them. Yeah, that surprised me too. But now that he's dead, it's only kids. And since you know as well as I do that nobody ever believes kids, we kind of have to fight them on our own. So that's what's happening. I'll be in touch. No, I don't know when. Give Emmie a kiss for me, okay?

And, Mom, I love you. In fact, I'm staying away because I love you.

I expected to feel familiar tears on my cheeks. For the first time, there weren't any.

Seven o'clock finally arrived.

The door opened, and Kyle Standish poked his head in. “Lights out, dudes.”

As the First Stop Boss, Kyle's job was to run this ratty old place, make sure there was food for the recruits, and keep an eye on things after hours. He spent most of the day sleeping in his private bedroom at the end of the hall and usually only came out at night. A few of the kids half-jokingly called him the local vampire—but he didn't look like a vampire. Kyle was tall and pretty muscular, with hair not quite as red as mine. He smiled a lot—too much, in my opinion, given the lousy work he had to do.

“Why can't we still watch TV?” Ethan asked.

Kyle shook his head. “You know the rules. We've got to shut off all power at sunset.”

“This sucks,” Dave groaned.

“Yeah, it does,” Kyle replied. “The thing is that after dark, any lights might get noticed from the street. This place is supposed to be closed, remember? We don't want any of Philly's Finest poking around, do we?”

“Guess not,” Ethan admitted.

“This sucks,” Dave said again—but then he stretched out on the bunk.

“You'll get over it,” a new voice said.

Kyle wordlessly stepped aside as Tom entered the room. Tall as Kyle was, Tom dwarfed him. The Chief had his hands on his hips as he surveyed us like a drill sergeant. His dark eyes found mine. “You ready?”

I nodded glumly and stood up.

“I want to watch Will fight,” the Burgermeister said.

“Me too,” Ethan added.

“Maybe next time,” Tom told them. “This one's private.”

“So he gets to have fun while I lay here and stare at the ceiling?” Dave asked sourly.

Tom smiled. “He won't be having fun. Trust me.” Then he led me out the door.

“It might've been smarter not to tell Dave about tonight's special session,” Tom whispered once we were alone in the hallway. “He ended up spilling it to everybody else.”

“I know,” I replied. “Sorry.”

He shrugged. “Nothing for it now.”

The short corridor led past the kitchen and out into the shop's back room—the training room. Tom started off in that direction, but I caught his arm. “Can I talk to you for a second—before we go out there, I mean?”

Tom studied me curiously. “Sure thing. Let's hit the kitchen.”

First Stop's kitchen was really nothing more than several old plastic chairs, a sink, a beat-up microwave, and a noisy old refrigerator. Not even a table. A pile of threadbare rags did triple duty as napkins, paper towels, and place mats. A single bulb hung from the ceiling.

“Sit,” Tom said.

I sat.

“So what's up, bro?” the Chief asked, taking the chair beside mine.

As I struggled for the right words, there came a loud mechanical
click
from deeper in the building. The lights went out, leaving us in almost perfect darkness.

I jumped. “Jeez!”

“Just Kyle killing the power,” Tom explained. “You know the deal. From now until morning, we're on battery lamps—and only when absolutely necessary. Don't sweat it. Give your eyes a few seconds, and they'll adjust.”

The thing was, I kind of welcomed the sudden darkness. Somehow not having to look the Chief in the eyes made saying what I had to say easier. “Tom, I don't think we can beat the Corpses.”

There was a long silence. I swallowed.

“How do you figure that?” His tone was patient. At least he didn't sound pissed.

“Well—we're just kids!”

I could barely make out Tom nodding. My eyes were adjusting to the dark, just as promised. “Are we?”

“Yeah!” I replied. “I mean—aren't we? This afternoon at Haven, Steve was giving us his Corpse talk when Dave and Sharyn started messing with him, cracking jokes, and—you know, it just suddenly hit me, Tom! I'm twelve years old! You're only seventeen! No offense.”

“None taken.”

“The Corpses are all over the place! Some of them are even cops! What chance have we got?”

Another pause, longer than the first.

“Will, I'm impressed.”

“Huh?”

“It takes maturity to spot the immaturity in others.”

I frowned. “I don't—”

He silenced me with a gesture that I could barely see. “There are children in the Undertakers, Will—but not a lot of childhood. We all have to grow up much faster than is really fair. What you saw today was a crew of recruits who ain't yet learned that lesson. They're confused, and they're scared. This afternoon, back in Haven, y'all found yourselves in a classroom situation—something you're familiar with—and so familiar behaviors kicked in. You messed around. You got to be kids again.”

“But Sharyn—”

Tom chuckled. “Sharyn's
Sharyn
, Will. The rules go out the window where my sister's concerned. Ain't nobody on Earth I'd rather have with me in a fight, but she's always been a big kid.”

“Oh,” I said.

He could tell I was unconvinced.

“Look—just between us, I ain't saying we
can
beat the Corpses. After all, we're outnumbered and outgunned. But I do know that I'd put our crew up against any underground resistance that's ever existed. We got Schoolers in twenty middle schools across the city, all on the lookout for Seers. And do you know how we get 'em into those schools, bro?”

I nodded. “The Hackers—they rig them up with fake identities.”

“Right. The Schoolers all report direct to me. I pick 'em, give 'em their assignments, and send 'em off. Then each Schooler in the field gets hooked up with a Chatter at Haven who monitors their situation daily. Those dudes report to the Chatter Boss, who reports to me. You understand what I'm telling you?”

“That—we're organized?” I asked uncertainly.

Tom nodded. “Straight up. Three years back it was just your dad, Sharyn, and me. But slowly we been getting bigger. This month, six more kids'll roll in, including yourself—and that's pretty typical. We're up past 120 Undertakers, with about a quarter of them in the field at any given time. We're good at this, Will. Seriously good.”

I considered this. “Tom, it sounds great. It really does.”

“Do I hear a
but?
” he remarked, smiling.

“I get what you're saying,” I said with a sigh. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean to—”

I started to stand up.

Tom's strong hand fell on my shoulder. “Don't wimp out on me. Nothing you said has pissed me off. Like I told you, I'm impressed you even came up with this concern. Now level with me. Tell me what's on your mind.”

“Well, the Undertakers have been around for about three years—almost since the Corpses first appeared, right?”

“Right.”

“And in all that time, other than getting bigger and better organized—what have you really
done?
”

Even in the darkness, I saw his expression falter. Instantly I backpedaled. “I'm sorry.”

“It's cool,” he said quietly, thoughtfully. “You sound like Sharyn is all.”

“I do?”

“She's always nagging me that we need to stop playing defense and start taking the fight to the Corpses.”

“Are you sure she's wrong?”

“No,” the Chief admitted. “Will, do you know who Harriet Tubman was?”

“Who?”

“Harriet Tubman. She was this slave who lived down south about 150 years ago. Ever heard of her?”

I thought that maybe I had, that she sounded familiar due to some half-remembered history class. But I shook my head anyway.

Tom said, “She escaped slavery and came north. Then she turned right around and went back to help free others. Became this major conductor on the Underground Railroad. Know what
that
was?”

This time I nodded. “It was this bunch of safe houses where runaway slaves could hide after they escaped.”

“Right. The thing that most people don't get is that the fight against slavery started up long before the Civil War. And it wasn't fought by armies on battlefields but by ordinary folks doing what they could to help themselves and each other.”

I nodded, frowned, and looked uncomfortably down at my shoes.

Tom laughed a little. “Good speech, huh?”

I shrugged. “Not bad.”

“But the thing is: I believe it,” he insisted. “Look, bro. Nobody'd like to really nail the Corpses more than I would. But staying alive in this situation ain't about heroism. It's about practicality. If we attack now, we lose. Straight up. As things stand, the Corpses know we exist, and they're looking for us. But since we don't do nothing to really threaten them, they don't look too hard. Yeah, they've raided a couple of our First Stops, but they still ain't found Haven. And I intend to keep it that way.”

“I get it,” I said.

“Do you?” Tom asked, and there was something like need in the Chief's expression.

He wants me to get what he's saying.

“We can't be Harriet Tubman forever, Tom,” I said.

“That's what Sharyn tells me.”

“Maybe she's right.”

He nodded. “No maybes about it. But before the time comes to really start fighting, we first got to find a weapon—a genuine lethal weapon—that we can use against the Corpses. And we've got to pick up numbers. We need to finally become the army that you and my sister think we ought to be—the army that your dad dreamed about.”

“My dad dreamed that?” I asked.

“Will, your dad dreamed all of this. Ain't I made that plain?”

“I guess so.” It just kept surprising me. My dad was everything to me. But as it turned out, he was even more than I'd thought he was.

“Will,” Tom said, his manner suddenly grave. “I need you to understand something.”

“Yeah?”

“I don't know when the Undertakers'll be ready to start really fighting back. But this much I
do
know: when it happens, it'll be
my
call. I'm Chief, Will—have been ever since your dad died—and that chain of command is what helps to keep us alive. I need your word that you'll respect that no matter what you feel inside. Can you give me that?”

I met Tom's eyes in the dark.

“Yeah,” I said. “I mean…yes, sir. I can.”

It was a promise that I meant to keep.

At least I thought I did.