The Undertakers (6 page)

Escape

An hour later, I sat on a canvas folding bunk, dressed in borrowed clothes and staring down at my shoes.

Haven had two dormitories—one for boys and one for girls. Both were just pieces of the big room that had been sectioned off with unpainted plywood. Every kid in this place had an assigned bunk, although mine would be temporary. Apparently I would be spending the night here and would then go to First Stop—whatever that was—in the morning.

Spending the night here—with the Undertakers.

By now my mom must know some of what had happened at school. She had to be worried sick. She was probably home right now, calling in favors from all of Dad's old friends on the police force to help find her missing son. Except that I was here, in this unfindable place deep below a condemned building with a gang of runaways who seemed determined to make me one of them.

Besides, how many of those old friends might be
Corpses?

I have to go home!

Coming here—allowing myself to be brought here—had been a terrible mistake.

That had suddenly become very clear to me. Forget what Helene had said about putting my mom and Emmie in danger. She was my mom! She'd know what to do! Mom always knew what to do.

I looked up. There were two other boys in the room, playing cards and laughing like friends.

I didn't want to make any friends in this place! I didn't want to See Corpses. And I sure as hell didn't want to be an Undertaker.

I stood up, my heart pounding. The card-playing boys ignored me. Slowly, afraid of being suddenly challenged—
grabbed
—I walked out of the room.

The Big Room was as busy as ever. Over to the left, I noticed an indoor skateboarding track, complete with slopes and quarter pipes. This place almost seemed like a kid's paradise. Free candy. Cool bikes. Junk food. Skateboarding. No parents. Heck, there was probably a rocking video arcade around here somewhere!

I felt nauseated.

There were Undertakers everywhere.

I walked through them, around them, amid them, and no one called my name or asked me what I thought I was doing. No one really noticed me—not even when I circled around the corral area where they kept the Stingrays and stepped through the disguised plastic curtain that hid the entrance.

So simple.

I'd find a pay phone and call my house. Mom would come and get me. Mom would believe me about the Corpses. Mom would make it all right.

Once I was through the curtain and in the spiraling tunnel, I had to climb over the lip of the ramp that Sharyn and the rest of the cyclists had jumped off when we'd arrived here. After that I just started running. It was a long run, and all uphill, but I didn't care. I ran until my breathing came in painful gasps and my vision blurred, and still I didn't slow down. Finally I staggered into the late afternoon sunshine on Green Avenue, blinking and sweating, and headed immediately for the nearest corner.

There were people around, but thankfully no Corpses. No one noticed me. It was almost as if I were invisible or something. I liked it. I felt as if it protected me.

It took a while to find a pay phone. The neighborhood wasn't a good one.

I finally wandered, half-exhausted, into a Laundromat and spotted a phone on the wall. Silently grateful, I ran to it and snatched up the receiver. It dawned on me at that moment that I could count on one hand the number of times I'd used one of these things! These days everybody carried a cell phone. If my own hadn't still been in my backpack in Dead Ms. Yu's classroom, I wouldn't have come in here at all!

It made me wonder if pay phones like this even worked anymore.

It did. I could hear a dial tone.

After fumbling in my pockets for loose coins, I finally wised up and read the instructions. Then I dialed
0
and waited until a woman's voice asked me if I wanted to make a collect call. I did, and I gave the voice my name and home phone number.

“Please hold,” she said. There came a pause, followed by some clicks.

There was no ringing—just a short silent wait that almost drove me insane.

Then: “Will?”

“M-Mom?” I choked, squeezing my eyes shut.

“Will? Honey? Is that you?” Her relief and terror nearly broke my heart. “Where are you? What's happened? Are you—?”

I opened my eyes, wiping at the tears that filled them—and froze.

A Corpse was looking down at me.

Remember the
holy crap factor?
Well, at that moment, I came pretty close to factoring into my pants.

She was a
ripe
one, tall and thin, her gray skin oily and hanging loose off her bones. Her hair fell from her scalp in thin, dark wisps—and her milky eyes locked right on me.

I dropped the receiver. I could hear my mom calling my name.

The Corpse grinned. Then she spoke. “William Ritter, I presume?”

We were alone in the Laundromat. I'd been in such a hurry to get to the phone that I hadn't even bothered to scope the place out. Around us some of the big dryers were rumbling loudly, drowning out whatever noise I might make.

I tried to run, but the dead woman was too fast—way too fast. She shoved me hard in the chest, sending me staggering back against the wall, knocking over a trash can.

Then before I could steady myself, she closed on me again. One of her hands, smelling of rotten eggs, seized my throat.

I gagged as the fingers tightened.

Within moments I felt my sneakers leave the floor. I hung in her grasp, my eyes bulging, thrashing as helplessly as a fish on a hook.

The Corpse grinned wider.

“Don't worry, little one,” she hissed. “I won't kill you.”

Then, as my vision blurred, my eyes involuntary crossed, letting me glimpse the Mask hovering atop the rotting lump of meat that had me by the throat.

The gray curly hair. The wrinkled, spotted face. The kindly expression.

I was being choked out by a monster pretending to be a little old lady.

Darkness closed in around me.

“We have plans for you, William Ritter,” Dead Old Lady whispered.

Then her head came off.

One minute, she was grinning at me with her black lips and yellowed, decaying teeth. The next, this look of surprise flashed across her face as her head went spinning through the air in a flash of silver. There wasn't much blood. After all, her heart hadn't been beating. Her arteries had probably dried up days ago.

For one horrible moment, the hand around my throat continued to choke me. Then its grip loosened, and it fell with the rest of her to the tile floor. I dropped back down onto my sneakers, the world seeming to tilt around me. I had to clutch at the wall to steady myself. Gradually my vision cleared.

Sharyn spun her sword smoothly and sheathed it on her back.

“Out for a walk, Red?” she asked with a smile.

I didn't know what to say.

She shrugged. “Still not much of a talker, huh? No sweat. Saw you split Haven and figured I'd better follow along. This can be a rough part of town.”

I looked at the phone and then down at its dangling receiver. Before I could reach for it, Sharyn hung it up without a word. Through it all, I could hear my mother calling—screaming—my name.

My throat, already sore from the Corpse's attack, now closed up for another reason.

“I want to go home,” I whispered.

Sharyn nodded, still smiling. “Why don't you talk that one over with Tom, huh?” She looked around the Laundromat. “Let's go. Even Deaders got to do the wash thing, I s'pose—but I don't figure this one was using all these machines. Somebody'll come by.”

“They'll find the body?” I asked hopefully.

“Not unless she wants them to—and she doesn't.”

I blinked.“I…don't understand. You said you couldn't kill a Corpse.”

“You can't, and I didn't. She's still in there. But we don't got time to get into all that. Come on.” She took my arm and led me, gently but firmly, back out onto the street.

We returned to Haven walking side by side, Sharyn humming some tune I didn't know and me once again staring down at my shoes.

“Am I in trouble?” I asked finally.

“For what?”

“For trying to go home.”

She chuckled. “Will, if every new recruit who bailed got into trouble, Tom and me would probably be alone in there. Don't worry over it.” Then, looking sideways at me, she said, “Hey, you never asked me about Vader.”

“What?”

“My sword. Ain't you curious about it?”

Right then, I both was and wasn't. But I supposed talking about that was better that thinking about what my mom was going through at the moment. “It's a
katana
, isn't it?” I asked.

“Nope. It's a
wakizashi
. That's a Japanese word that means ‘sidearm.' It's smaller than a katana—easier to hide under a jacket or something.”

“Why do you use it?”

“Because I don't like squirt guns,” she said. “Besides, when Corpses get doused, they can pretty much shake it off. But lop something off their sorry butts, and there ain't nothing for them to do but Transfer. Keeps 'em down longer.”

“Then why doesn't everyone in the group carry one?” I asked.

Her grin widened. “Can you figure a hundred kids all running around with swords?”

I had to admit I couldn't.

“I'm a special case,” she added.

No argument there.

“Where did you get it?” I asked.

I expected her to tell me she'd stolen it, maybe back in the days when she and her brother had been boosting houses to get by. But instead, she said, “Your old man gave it to me.”

My father gave her a sword?

One more painful mystery. One more thing I didn't feel like exploring.

I fell silent. She let me be. And we finished our walk that way.

When we got back to Haven—once again traveling down that long, spiraling tunnel and through the curtain of “bricks”—everything was pretty much as it had been. If my escape had made any kind of splash, it didn't show—at least not until Sharyn escorted me back into the boys' dorm.

Helene was waiting for me.

One girl saw the other, and something passed between them. Sharyn patted my shoulder. “Good luck,” she said to me. Then she turned and left.

The card players were still there, ignoring us completely. Otherwise the room was empty. Helene stood beside the bunk that had been assigned to me. Her hands were on her hips. Her eyes locked on mine almost as fiercely as the Corpse's had back in the Laundromat.

Then she marched right up and punched me in the stomach.

Facing Facts

Gasping, I doubled over, feeling all the blood drain from my face.

Helene exclaimed, “Do you know what you almost did?”

I gulped for air. Helene had hit me pretty hard, but something told me it wasn't as hard as she
could
have hit me, so I figured maybe keeping quiet was better than trying to defend myself just now. She didn't seem to need my half of the conversation anyway.

“They're looking for you, you idiot!” she cried, waving her hands in the air. “They're out there right now. Hundreds of them! Maybe thousands! And by this time, every one of them knows what you look like! How many did you run into? Well? How many?”

With an effort, I found my voice. “Just one.”

“Where?”

“Laun…Laundromat.”

Helene blew out a sigh. “You got that far? Good. At least they didn't close in on you too close to
here
.” She stomped away, back toward my cot. With a groan of effort, I straightened.

She said sharply but with less anger, “Will, if they'd caught you, they'd have made you lead them right back here. Don't you realize that? If the Corpses ever find out where we are…” Her words trailed off. “I'm sorry I hit you,” she said after a long moment.

“Me too,” I replied.

At that she almost smiled. She had a nice smile, but right then, I wasn't interested in it or her.

Helene sighed again. “I guess I…kind of forgot what it's like on your first day. You okay?”

“Yeah.”

She conjured up an awkward laugh. “Hey—I hear you had some fun with Steve earlier. Here's a tip: don't test anything he gives you unless you've seen at least three other people test it first.”

Then when I didn't reply, she made an exasperated face. “I said I was sorry.”

“I know.”

“Will you please talk to me?”

“I wanna go home, Helene.”

“I know how you feel.”

“No, you don't,” I said.

“Yeah, Will, I do. What do you think—that I was born here?” Helene stepped up to me and took my arm, looking dismayed when I flinched. She led me to my cot, sat me down, and then settled herself beside me. Quietly she explained, “I grew up in Allentown. That's about an hour northwest of here. Ever hear of it?”

I took a deep breath, still hugging my stomach. “It's where Dorney Park is,” I remarked. That was a local amusement park.

She nodded. “We used to go there a lot when I was a little kid.”

“How'd you end up here?” I asked.

“One morning I started Seeing dead people. Not a lot of them—just a few here and there. Scared the crap outta me! I told my mom and dad. They thought I was nuts. Gave me all these tests—all these pills. That's happened to a lot of kids around here. Of course, none of it did any good. The Corpses were still there.

“So they stuck me in a nuthouse—only they called it a hospital. Doctors would jab me with needles and ask me about my dreams. I was there about a month when a new nurse showed up: Mrs. Greer. But Mrs. Greer wasn't alive.” She looked pointedly at me. “Can you guess where I'm going with this?”

I nodded.

Helene continued, “I found out later that the Corpses infiltrate nuthouses that handle kids. They're looking for Seers like us—the ones who get locked away for saying that they can See the Corpses for what they really are.”

“What do the Corpses do when they find one?”

She grimaced and then ran a finger under her throat from ear to ear.

I swallowed dryly. I didn't want to believe this.

Helene went on. “One night after lights out, Mrs. Greer came after me—ready to put a pillow over my face and then fake some kind of accident or something. All of a sudden, this boy and girl, both dressed like orderlies, burst through the door. The boy shot a water gun into Mrs. Greer's face and then the girl chopped her head off with a sword! I never saw anybody move so fast!

“Then the boy said to me, ‘Helene, you're not crazy. And if you don't want to die, come with us now.'”

“Tom and Sharyn?” I asked.

“Yeah. Back then they still did a lot of the Seer runs themselves. See, the Undertakers watch the nuthouses for the same reasons the Corpses do. I mean, we can't put people on the staff, but we
can
hack into the patient files.

“Anyway they brought me here. That was nearly two years ago, not long after your dad…” Her words trailed off.

Swallowing, I did some math just to distract myself. “So…how old were you when you started Seeing Corpses? Ten?”

“Eleven. I'm thirteen, Will.”

“Oh,” I said, surprised. I'd assumed that she was twelve, like me. “Don't you miss your parents?”

“Sure. Every day.”

“Then why don't you just go home?”

“Because I love them, and I don't want anything to happen to them. The Corpses have been known to kill whole families if they think their secret might be in danger. Besides, as much as I know they love me, there's nothing—absolutely nothing—I could say that would make them believe me. Adults don't believe kids about stuff like this. They never have, and they never will. The Corpses know that. They count on it.”

“I'll bet my mom would believe me,” I insisted.

“I'll bet she wouldn't.”

This time it was my turn to get angry. I jumped to my feet.

“Look!” I snapped, glaring down at this girl who'd saved my life today. “Just because
your
mom didn't believe
you
doesn't mean that mine wouldn't believe
me!
She's better than that! I'm telling you she'd believe me!”

Helene's expression hardened again. She stood and faced me, her fists back on her hips. “I wish we could let you leave! I'd like to watch you run home to your mommy and ask for help! Just see what happens next! See if you don't end up in a nuthouse, with a stick in your mouth and wires glued to your body and some guy in a white coat telling everyone to stand clear—right before he hits the switch!”

“She wouldn't do that to me!” I screamed, tears stinging my eyes.

“Yeah, she would! She's a grown-up, just like all the rest! She'd tell you she loves you and that it's
for the best
. You could yell and kick all you wanted, but still they'd strap you down and tell you to relax—and then,
zap!
”
Helene snapped her fingers in my face before stepping right up to me, bringing her nose within inches of mine.

“Don't you think all the kids here wish they could go home? Don't you think the dozens of Undertakers who are watching the schools and sleeping in sewers wish it too? Don't you think the kids who See Corpses and end up dead wish it most of all?

“You want to feel sorry for yourself, then fine! But don't you dare—don't you
dare!
—tell me that your mom would believe when mine didn't!”

For a few long seconds, we just stood there glaring at each other. I half-expected her to hit me again and wondered what I'd do if she did. My father had warned me more than once about hitting girls—about hitting anybody.

But then, my dad had said a lot of things. And one look around this place suggested that my dad hadn't been who I thought he was.

Helene said, “You shouldn't be here.”

“I know.”

“You should've gone right to First Stop. I don't know why Tom wanted me to bring you straight to Haven.” Then after a moment's thought, she said, “Yeah, I do. He figured you were different. You're Karl Ritter's kid, so he figured you'd be better than just any old middle-schooler.”

“I'm not,” I said.

“No, you're not.” She then gave me a pitying look that somehow seemed much worse than her anger or even her punch. “One more thing,” she told me. “If you ever again put the rest of us in danger like you just did, I'll kill you myself!”

Before I could reply, she ran from the room. To my surprise, I could hear her crying.

“Nice job, Red,” one of the card players taunted.

“Yeah—swift move!” added the other.

“That's enough,” said a third voice, and the two of them instantly went quiet.

I looked back at the doorway.

Helene was gone. Tom had taken her place.

He pointed a finger. “Come with me.”