Empire (18 page)

    When the torches were extinguished and the crowd was ushered out, the boy climbed onto his father's shoulders and searched for his new hero. Eviscerato was nowhere to be seen.

    His father tucked him in very late, and they stayed up a while longer talking about all the things they'd seen. The boy kissed his father and settled down to dream about the circus.

    When he awoke, it was still dark. A few fires glowed outside the window of the shanty, and the boy got up to see what was happening.

    The circus was leaving. The tent was gone and the animals were motionless in their cages. As the caravan passed the window, the boy saw men without makeup or smiles sitting atop the wagons. He watched them until the last light faded over the horizon.

    Then another wagon passed by the window, and stopped. The King of the Dead was the driver. He smiled his painted smile and reached out a bloody hand.

    "Come with me." Eviscerato said. "Come dance forever."

    The boy took his hand and climbed out the window. The King of the Dead whipped the horses and pulled away. The boy's father chased after the wagon, crying out his name, but the boy didn't hear him.

    Four.

    Only four had come back. They were all disoriented, stained with soot and blood, and Sawbones was not among them.

    Tetch made them wait on the porch while he spread plastic across the foyer, then he brought his siblings in and locked up behind them. Aidan hadn't returned either; without him, there was little hope of getting specifics on what had happened. "Stay on the plastic." Tetch muttered. He nudged Prudence, whose eyes refused to meet his, and leaned in close. "How many of them were there?"

    She studied the grime at her feet, the blistering on her burnt flesh. Standing on her toe, Tetch lifted her chin with his hand. "Use your fingers. How many?"

    She raised an index finger and averted her gaze.

    "No. No." Tetch stepped back and glanced at the others, only to have each one look away. "Not just one. I want to know how many there were to begin with, how many of them did this to you! Bailey! How many?"

    The rotter shifted his weight from one foot to the other; he wasn't ashamed, he simply had nothing to offer. Tetch grabbed him by the hair and shook him around. "Tell me! TELL ME!!"

    Bailey raised one finger.

    Tetch snapped it in his fist. The afterdead stood motionless.

    "I sent all of you and only four came back! Why are you telling me this? Didn't you see any of them? Gerald!" Tetch backhanded the next in line. "Look at me!"

    Gerald's glassy stare penetrated his brother. "Now," Tetch breathed, pulling a fountain pen from his jacket, "take this and write on your hand. You know numbers, don't you? Tell me how many people you saw, and if you put a 'one' down so help me..."

    The rotter grasped the pen awkwardly and held it over his open palm. He wrote nothing.

    "Gerald?"

    Tetch's eyes widened as the pen, unused, was handed back to him.

    He brought the pen up to stab it into Gerald's unblinking eye.

    "Please don't!"

    Tetch whirled to see Lily at the top of the stairs. "Go to your room!" He commanded. "What happened?" She shot back. He hurled the pen at her and missed by a mile. "GO TO YOUR ROOM!!"

    Something struck him then. He thought back to when he'd caught Lily by the fence, how there had seemed to be a shadow in the swamp that fled from view when he came outside. He remembered that she'd said something the night before about a man with black eyes.

    Tetch started up the stairs, and Lily backed away from him. "Don't be afraid of me," he said softly. "I take care of you. I love you. Don't you love me?"

    She nodded. It was a quick, insincere gesture. Tetch lowered himself to her height and gave her a pleading look. "Lily, someone hurt your brothers and sisters. I think the others...they're dead. Really dead. Who were you talking to earlier?"

    The girl turned on her heel and tried to bolt; he caught her arm and shoved her across the landing into the wall. Tetch pinned her there. She screamed, but he held fast. "Who are you screaming for, Lily? Who's out there that you trust more than me? Who do you love more than me? Don't say nobody, or you're a LIAR, Lily, and lying makes you an ugly little child and no one loves you then!"

    "No!" She struggled against him until her face was bright red. "You're the liar!"

    "I've never EVER lied to you!" Spittle struck her cheek and Tetch raised his cuff to wipe it away. She flinched, going limp against him. His body's reaction was quite the opposite.

    "I've never lied to you." He repeated. She kept her eyes shut tight, face turned away. He pulled her into an embrace. "Lily..."

    "You've never lied to me."

    "But you don't really believe that."

    "Yes I do." Like the others, she wouldn't look at him, but she said in a tiny voice, "I was just scared."

    He kissed her on the cheek and gave her a bit of room to breathe. "It was the man with the black eyes, wasn't it? He came back."

    She gave a reluctant nod in reply. Tetch whispered "Good," and kissed her mouth, tasting her breath, his hands trembling against the small of her back. "What's his name, Lily?"

    "He doesn't have one."

    Tetch's grip relaxed completely. Opening her eyes, Lily backed away from his pale face, his slack arms. He didn't even look at her.

    She went back to her bedroom.

    Outside the burning shelter, under a dark sky, a pile of crumbled and mutilated remains lay in the folds of a black cloak. There was a sound like dead leaves rustling and Death reconstituted himself.

    He sat in the street for a long time, his steed pacing around him, and he thought. These undead hadn't been like any others. They'd been taught to behave and interact in some semblance of mortality. They were the ones from the swamp.

    The Reaper spent some time looking through the clothes of the corpses around him, then got back on his horse. The living from the shelter were still nearby, and some of them would be dead very soon. Though he couldn't prevent that, couldn't add a single precious second to their flickering candles - he could at least see that none of them were added to the ranks of the afterdead...

    Tetch lay on the floor outside Lily's door, ear pressed to the wood, until her breathing became deep and even. Then he returned to the foyer. The others were still standing there.

    "Go out to the shed," he told Gerald, "and bring the crate inside. Be careful with it - Simeon, you help him."

    He dismissed Prudence and Bailey as well, then went to the window and peered through the curtain into the blackness of the swamp.

    "Can you hear me out there?" He whispered. "I know who you are."

    There was a little story a bum had told him once when he was a boy, one that he had never forgotten. Pressing his face to the cold glass, Tetch spoke.

    "I am the king of the dead."

    The East Harbor Mall on the next block had been one of the first large buildings to fall when the outbreak began in the early 21st century. Some old movie about zombies had sent dozens of townspeople fleeing to the mall, hoping to barricade themselves inside its stores and wait out the nightmare. Those who didn't kill each other were quickly cornered and ripped apart by the undead.

    Clothing outlets, restaurants, a department store and a movie theater were among the empty husks within the mall. Everything from underwear to cash to theater seats had been plundered, and the bloodstained floors were eventually licked clean and the place was abandoned to the elements. Squatters were known to spend a night or two in malls but they were generally regarded as unsafe.

    Voorhees led the group, checking each outlet to see if it still had the security gate that would block its entryway. Most had been torn down.

    Jenna and Lauren brought up the rear, holding each other to no effect. The terrified couldn't comfort the terrified, Mark Duncan observed. Still he thought he'd give it a shot.

    "We'll be okay. We're with these people now." He told the women. Neither responded. "We're better off than we were at Fetish," he continued. "That cop said we're on our way to the police department. He's got it secured."

    "The cop who killed that man?" Lauren stammered.

    "Here we go!" Mike called. They were ushered into a store with nothing on its walls to indicate what it had once sold. Voorhees pulled down the security gate. "What good will that do?" Said Wendy. "It'll do." Voorhees grumbled.

    "I've got to get back to my apartment." Mike told him. "Cheryl, the girl I told you about, she's there. You continue to the PD and we'll catch up."

    "Out of the question." Voorhees shot back, then, lowering his voice: "You're the only one I trust. Probably the only one who trusts me, now."

    "I'll take Shipley with me."

    "Why would you do that?"

    "What if Cheryl can ID him as her attacker?"

    Cop instincts taking over, Voorhees considered it. He eyed Shipley, who was sitting alone in the back of the room.

    "Take my gun, Mike. No one else knows it's empty."

    Mike nodded gratefully and motioned to Shipley. "We've gotta go get somebody."

    "What? Why me?"

    "If you'd rather stay with me, just say so." Voorhees cracked. Shipley narrowed his eyes and got up. "Fuck that."

    Mike raised the gate, and Voorhees handed over the pistol. Shipley stopped in front of the senior P.O. before leaving. "You take care of these people."

    "That's my job." Voorhees pushed Shipley into the corridor and slammed the gate back down.