The Undertakers (28 page)

The Prodigal Son

An exhausted Susan Ritter opens the door of her Manayunk home and fishes into her rusty mailbox with trembling, nail-bitten fingers. The street is quiet. Even her neighbor, Mr. Pratt, who's been so attentive lately—always asking after Will—seems to have finally taken the hint and left her alone.

It's been more than two weeks now. The school has offered little in the way of explanation—other than that Will and a girl she never heard of ran out of class one morning. Apparently a teacher was injured. The circumstances are sketchy, and Susan can't shake the feeling that everyone—even some of the police—is keeping things from her.

Emily is in the living room watching
Dora the Explorer
. The little girl knows full well that her brother is missing, and her mother senses that she is suffering the loss, despite her tender years. Susan sometimes has to force herself to tend to the child. Other times, she clings to her like a lifeline. After all, Emmie is the only one left of her once whole and happy family. First Karl. Now Will. Dear God.

In the days since the disappearance, there'd been a lot happening, with police, school board representatives, relatives, and neighbors constantly stopping by. But as a week passed and then two, these visits grew less and less frequent. Susan still calls the police twice a day, hoping for news. They still talk to her. They're still kind.

But now, except for daily visits from her sister, everyone leaves her alone.

Susan isn't sure which is worse: the constant attention or this terrible feeling of abandonment. Will is out there somewhere, and every fiber of her being wants to search for him. But there's Emmie to consider—beyond the simple terrible reality that she has no idea where to look.

So she does the only thing that she really can do. She goes on with her day, her life, without him. Just as she did after Karl died.

It is agony.

What little sleep she manages to get is always fraught with dreams: Will in trouble. Will in pain. Will calling out to her, his pale, freckled face awash with tears. She often wakes either screaming or crying, which sometimes frightens Emmie. Then the two of them, mother and daughter, clutch each other on the bed until this meager comfort finally lulls them both back to sleep.

Susan reflects on all this as she flips through the mail. Junk and bills. Always more bills. She's taken a leave of absence from work, but she can't keep that up for much longer. There's still food to be bought and a mortgage to pay.

Her hand stops at an unstamped white envelope. It bears no return address—no address at all, in fact, except for one word—scrawled in blocky letters that she recognizes instantly.

Susan feels her heart skip a beat.

Mom.

Feeling a sudden chilling mixture of excitement and terror, she drops everything else and tears the letter open. Inside is a single sheet of lined paper.

Dear Mom,

I'm okay. I'm sorry I can't come home yet. I'm also sorry I can't tell you where I am. There's this stuff I have to do—important stuff. I know you're sad. I'm sad too. I know you're probably real worried about me. But I really, really want you to trust me. Scary things are happening, and I have to fight them. It's a fight that Dad started before he died, and now it's my job to finish it. I know you don't understand, but it's really safer if you don't.

I'm not alone. I've made some good friends, and we're all working real hard so I can come home.

Until then, you've got to be real careful, so burn this letter. Take care of my sister, and try not to worry
too
much. I know I used to tell you to stop babying me. That I wasn't a kid anymore. Well, it wasn't true then. It's true now.

I miss you.

Love,

Will

Susan reads and rereads the letter, feeling her heart pound in her chest. What is this? Obviously, someone dropped it into her mailbox, probably during the night. A terrible joke? But it's Will's handwriting! She's certain of it!

He's alive! Somewhere out there, alone in the world, her son is alive!

Slowly Susan re-enters her home and closes the front door. Vaguely, running on autopilot, she locks it. Then she walks past the living room, where Emily in sitting too close to the television.

“Sit back, Emmie,” she says flatly, as though in a daze.

The girl nods, shifting herself maybe six inches.

“I'm going to lie down for a while, baby. Come upstairs if you need me, okay?”

“Okay, Mommy.”

Susan climbs the stairs and enters her son's empty bedroom, clutching his letter so tightly that her fingers ache.

Will's room is just as he left it: the bed poorly made; his pajamas in a heap on the floor. Her sister frequently offers to tidy things up, but Susan always refuses. “He'll do it when he gets home,” she insists, repeating the statement over and over again, almost like a prayer.

Now she sits down on Will's rumpled bed and reads the letter a third time.

He's alive. Her stunned mind can barely grasp it. As for the other, more confusing parts of the note—well, there'll be time enough to try to figure out what they mean later.

Susan lays back on her missing son's bed, tucks her missing son's pillow under her head, curls up into a ball atop her missing son's blanket…

And begins to cry.

The Road Ahead

Something very rare was happening at Haven: a genuine party.

Not surprisingly it had been Sharyn's idea to celebrate the Undertakers' first real victory. Tom had agreed but only after insisting on twenty-four hours to make absolutely certain our new HQ was completely secure. His sister had called him a wet blanket, but she'd gone along with him.

A few kids were sent out for chips, dips, and sodas. Others went looking for streamers and noisemakers. By nightfall on the day after Kenny Booth had exploded on live television, Haven was awash in music, food, laughter, and dancing.

For a short time, the Undertakers got to be kids again.

Sharyn whirled around the room, talking to everyone and pulling people out onto an uncluttered section of the workroom floor that she'd designated as a dance area. She hijacked control of the sound system that the Monkeys had just finished setting up and used it for karaoke, singing a half-dozen rap songs before passing the mike onto Chuck who, as it turned out, could manage a decent Elvis impersonation.

I quietly hung back, watching the goings-on from a corner of the room. Helene was twirling around the dance floor with the Burgermeister, who was blushing beat red and clearly enjoying himself.

I spotted Tom standing near one of the doorways and walked over to him. We swapped smiles.

“Cool party,” Tom said halfheartedly.

“Lot of noise,” I said.

“Yeah,” Tom replied.

“Afraid somebody'll hear?”

Tom shrugged. “It ain't likely.”

“Guess it's your job to worry about stuff like that, huh?”

“Guess so.”

I suddenly didn't envy this guy.

Hesitantly I asked, “Do you think the Corpses'll replace Booth?”

Tom considered this. “Given what he told you about their caste system, they'll have to. In a month or so, some new member of the leader caste will show up—maybe not as a news anchorman but as
someone
. That's the bad news. The good news is that it'll be a long time—years, maybe—before they get back to the point where they can take another shot at the mayor's office.”

“But what about the Corpses in other cities?” I asked. “Other leaders?”

“One thing at a time. We've declared war in Philly. Let's start here, okay?”

“Okay.”

The Chief glanced sideways at me. “Had enough of the party for a while?”

“Yeah,” I admitted.

“Then come on. I wanna show you something.”

He led me out of the workroom and down a passageway, past more than a dozen smaller chambers that had already been turned into living quarters. We passed the new kitchen, Steve's new Brain Factory, and Karl Ritter's newly recreated shrine.

Be proud of me, Dad.

We came to an unmarked, rusted metal door, which Tom opened, having to pull hard against its ancient hinges. Then with a finger to his lips, he motioned for me to follow. Beyond was a flight of cement stairs leading up.

We climbed to another door. This one opened into what appeared to be a city government records room. Dusty boxes of papers filled tightly packed shelves. It didn't look like anyone had been in here in years.

“Where are we?” I asked.

“Still in City Hall's basement,” Tom told me, “but a higher level—one that's still in use. It's pretty late, so the building's mostly empty. A few janitors. A couple of guards maybe. As long as we don't make no noise, nobody'll bother us. Just stop when I tell you to, dig? There are a few security cameras.”

“Okay.”

Tom clearly knew the route well, making me wonder just how many times he'd come this way—and why.

The two of us moved higher into the enormous municipal building, avoiding the elevators and instead climbing long winding staircases past floor after floor of offices, meeting rooms, and public halls. We saw nobody. Once or twice, Tom stopped me with a gesture—his dark eyes watching the sweeping movements of a ceiling-mounted video camera. He waited until the lens turned away before hurrying us along.

Finally we reached the seventh floor, where a small museum offered displays about the building's long history.

“This…what you…wanted…to show me?” I asked, leaning over to catch my breath as I tried to recall the last time I'd climbed so many steps. The Chief, I noticed with dismay, didn't look tired in the least.

“No way.” He waggled a finger. “Saved the best for last.”

Groaning, I followed him to a single elevator. Beside it was a sign that read
to tower
.

Suddenly I knew where I was.

I'd been here years ago with my family, although in the after-hours gloom, I hadn't recognized it. This was City Hall's Tower Museum, with its elevator that would carry us to the observation platform at the top of the building, right below the enormous statue of Billy Penn.

Tom produced a key, flashed another smile, and used it to activate the elevator. We rode it up through the shell of the century-old, five-hundred-foot tower, behind the enormous clocks that decorated each of its four sides, and finally to the entrance to the outdoor platform.

My exhaustion forgotten, I fairly leapt out of the elevator as soon as it opened, pushed through the door to the observation deck, and bounded out into the brisk October air. Tom trailed after me, laughing.

The city of Philadelphia lay spread out before us—a vista of lights and motion, glistening skyscrapers filling the blocks between the cold, black ribbons of the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. I circled the observation deck, seeing the city from every angle, gawking at the thousand different colors and hearing the distant rumble of traffic on the streets forty stories below. Then I craned my neck, gazing up at the statue of the city's founder. William Penn had been a Quaker. He'd come from England looking for religious freedom and had ended up creating a place that he'd called “the City of Brotherly Love.”

Well, maybe it wasn't quite that, I supposed. But it was my home—the only home I'd ever known; a home that I was—that we all were—fighting for.

“Your namesake,” Tom remarked.

“Huh?”

Tom motioned up at the statue. “Another William.”

I grinned. “Yeah.”

Then we both turned and stood for a while in silence, side by side, looking out over the carpet of lights. It was cold, but I didn't mind.

After a while Tom reached into his jacket and pulled out the pocketknife that my dad had given him. For a moment he just gazed at it, turning it over in his strong hands. Mimicking him, I pulled out my own newer version—the one that the mysterious golden woman had provided. I studied it wonderingly.

Tom asked, “Any more visits from ladies bearing gifts?”

I shook my head.

“Mind a question?”

“Shoot,” I said

“Why didn't you tell me about the new knife back in the Infirmary?”

I shrugged. “You were already so pissed at me. What was I supposed to do, start talking about an angel coming to my bedside, leaving me a present, and whispering about my destiny? You'd have thought I was nuts!”

“Think so?” the Chief asked, his tone serious. “Bro, I'm leading a gang of teens in a fight against cadavers that have been reanimated by alien
things
from who-knows-where. Trust me, I'm a bit more open to weird ideas than you might imagine.”

“Okay,” I said. “If she shows up again, I promise you'll be the first to know.”

Tom smiled gratefully. “Cool. Thanks.” Then looking back down at the knife in his hands, he remarked, “So she was the one who gave this to your dad.”

“Yeah.”

“And she knew that he gave it to me?”

“Uh-huh.”

Tom looked thoughtful. “Then I figure that means she's okay with me having it.”

I looked up at him. “I can't think of anybody better.” Then I grinned and held up my own knife. “At least, not now that I got one of my own!”

The two of us shared a laugh, but it didn't last. As beautiful as it was up here, there was simply too much uncertainty ahead. Downstairs, everyone else was celebrating. But I just couldn't bring myself to do that. Not now. Not yet. Not with all we still had to do. And something told me that Tom felt the same way.

That's why he brought me up
here
.

True, the Undertakers had won a battle today—our first—and an important one.

But the war was just beginning.

Tom said quietly, “
The Unmakers of Worlds
.”

I nodded. “Think we'll find out exactly what that means?”

“I imagine so—eventually.”

We fell silent again.

I breathed in the city air and looked up at the stars. It was late. Emily would be in bed by now. Mom would be watching TV. Tomorrow they'd go to church.

Life. My normal life.

“Miss your mom?” Tom asked, as if reading my mind.

I nodded.

“And your sister?”

“Yeah.”

“Still want to go home?”

“More than ever,” I replied wistfully.

“Good,” he said. “It gives you something to fight for.”

“I know,” I replied. Then, glancing up at him, I asked, “Do you really think we can do it, Tom?”

“Do what?”

“Beat the Corpses?”

“Yeah,” Tom replied without hesitation. “We can.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“You want my honest answer?” he asked.

“Of course.”

“You might not like it.”

I shrugged. “Try me.”

The Chief of the Undertakers put one arm around my shoulders and squeezed. It was the same gesture he'd done before—back in the shrine on my first day at Haven. At the time I'd resented it. At the time I'd been frightened and confused. Well, I was still frightened—no doubt about that—but I was no longer confused. I knew what I had to do now, and as uncertain as my life was and would surely continue to be, that was better than nothing.

“Because of you, Will,” Tom said quietly. “I think we can win…because we got
you
.”