The Undertakers: End of the World (21 page)

But, again, Corpse Helene was ready. Planting the feet of her fresh new body in the deepening mud, she reached up and caught the monster’s bulbous head in both her dead hands. Then, in a single vicious motion, she swung her attacker in a wide arc, slamming her against a burned-out tree stump.

The stump shattered.

The Corpse Eater’s broken body slumped to the ground, motionless.

“There,” the new Queen of the Dead remarked, sounding quite satisfied as she turned back my way. “Now … where were we?”

Sacrifices

No water pistol. No pocketknife. No
Maankh.
No Vader.

And one seriously pissed off Royal Dead Woman intent on doing me some permanent hurt.

I’m screwed
…

She was “wearing” a solid Type Two, the strong and relatively fresh body of a young woman. From the dent in her skull, which gave the whole head a weirdly tilted look, I guessed that the human being she’d once been had taken a really hard head blow, enough to kill her, but not enough to make the body useless to the Corpses. Her hair was dark and stringy, her skin a mottled gray. It was pulled tight across her limbs and skull, not yet bloating from the gases that I knew must already be forming in her muscles as the tissues decomposed.

The science of the dead, for all the help it was to me now.

“I know why you’re here,” Corpse Helene said.

“Good for you,” I replied, retreating a step for every step she took toward me.

Seeing this, she smiled. “Ms. Filewicz was very forthcoming about Project Reboot. An ill-conceived nonsense effort to prevent my glorious invasion by having
you
return to your own time, cross the Void, and then destroy the Eternity Stone.”

“Something like that,” I said.

“Ludicrous, of course. As if we’d ever stand for such a thing. Do you know what would happen the instant, the very moment, you set foot on the
Malum
homeworld?”

I noticed Sharyn’s sword, half of it anyway. Corpse Helene had hurled the broken pieces in opposite directions. The pointy end had skewered a tree stump with such force that it had gotten stuck there, looking like a jagged Excalibur. Though it wasn’t too far away, I had no illusions. Even if I did somehow get to it before this Royal deader slaughtered me, I’d probably slice my fingers off trying to pull the broken length of blade free.

Yep. Totally screwed.

“Why don’t you tell me?” I suggested, thinking furiously.

“You and anyone with you would be immediately captured,” Corpse Helene replied. “Then you’d either be killed outright or taken to an arena to die in
bavarak.
My people don’t suffer invaders kindly.”

“But you’re totally cool with invading others!” I snapped, though I wasn’t sure if I said this in anger or fear. The two can seem surprisingly similar when you’re completely hosed.

Her grin widened. A glob of blood, dark red and as thick as maple syrup, dribbled out one corner of her mouth.

“Yes, Mr. Ritter,” she replied. “We are, indeed, ‘totally cool’ with that.”

My butt hit something hard. Looking hastily over my shoulder, I found that she’d backed me across Chestnut Street and right up against the front of Independence Hall. Its bricks felt cold, even through my clothes.

“Before I kill you,” the Queen of the Dead purred. “I want you to know something.”

“Take your time,” I said. “No hurry.”

She stopped right in front of me, her stink assailing my nose. I really didn’t want to die with that stench in my lungs.

“He’s a failure, you know.”

“Who?”

“Your future self. Chief William Ritter of the Undertakers. Oh, he’s tried. But since losing first Tom and then his beloved Helene, he’s broken. He’s become a shadow … almost a caricature of the Will Ritter who destroyed my mother and thwarted our first invasion.”

I suddenly grinned. “Wow,” I said.

Her dead head tilted curiously. “Wow?”

I nodded. “Yeah. Wow.”

“What’s that supposed to mean, boy?” Her hands were up now, her fingers like claws. In moments, she would tear my head off.

Or not.

“Just that, when you wormbags get monologuing, you don’t notice a thing, do you?”

“What?”

The Queen’s chest exploded outward as one of the Corpse Eater’s pincers drilled through it from behind. A figure appeared at her shoulder, but it wasn’t the ten-legged monster. It was Helene Ritter in human form. Only her right arm had gone
gravveg
.

It was a trick I’d seen once before.

Helene’s eyes found mine, and what I saw there wiped the smile right off my face. As she pulled the struggling Royal closer, I realized that blood flowed from deep gashes in her cheek and neck, as well as from the mangled ruin of her left leg. I suddenly remembered that one of the Corpse Eater’s limbs had been ripped away, right before her whole body had been slammed against a tree stump.
This
was how those awful injuries had translated to her human form. It was a wonder she’d managed to stand at all, much less sneak her way over here to save my life—

—one last time.

But then, Helene Boettcher had always been a wonder.

She said dully, “Two things, Will.”

I nodded, unable to make words happen.

“Tell him I love him.”

Again, I nodded. My heart felt like a stone.

She said, “And then get back there … and make it right.”

Looking into the dying woman’s eyes, I finally found my tongue. “You got my word.”

Helene held up her left hand. In its fist was a pen-sized cylinder.

The
Maankh
I’d given her.

“Good enough for me,” she croaked with a pained smile.

Then she fired Professor Moscova’s one-shot super-weapon into her own chest.

Both she and the Queen, locked in their tight, desperate embrace—exploded.

For more than a minute, I just stood there. I felt nothing, thought nothing,
was
nothing. I closed my eyes tight. At some point, I sank to my knees. I can’t tell you exactly when—only that, once awareness returned to me, I found myself kneeling, not standing.

I’d been battling monsters for so long that I couldn’t remember living any other way. Was there really once a Will Ritter who just went to school, did homework, joked with his friends, played soccer, and tried to get out of doing his chores?

Now my life had become war and death. This nightmare of a world into which I’d been plunged was splitting apart at its seams, collapsing into rubble. People, good people, the grown-up version of friends, were falling all around me. And I was supposed to be “okay” with this? I was supposed to somehow pick myself up and march on?

I was supposed to win?

Here’s something they never tell you in the storybooks, guys. Ready?

Being the hero
sucks.

I got to my feet. At the time I wasn’t sure how I managed it, though I am now.

I did it by picturing those same friends, only younger.

Helene. Emily. Sharyn. Steve. Even Alex. And also by picturing the ones who
weren’t
here, like Tom and Burt, as well as the ones who weren’t anywhere, not anymore. Like Chuck and Ian and Tara and Kyle.

And the Burgermeister.

With tired eyes, I looked over at the place where, just moments ago, Helene Ritter and the Queen of the Dead had struggled. There, sitting atop a pile of ash that had already been mostly blown away in the breeze, sat the Anchor Shard. The Corpse Eater had swallowed it, only to leave it behind when her body disintegrated around it.

One last gift.

I bent down and picked it up. Then I started walking.

Even in my fog of shock and grief, I was wary. There were still Corpses nearby, though I couldn’t see them or even hear them anymore as I crossed the empty mall, heading back toward Market Street.

Once on Market, I followed the rain-soaked, shadow-filled line of burned down storefronts east, until I reached the next corner. Down this darkened street was a manhole. Its cover was suspiciously ajar, as if someone had removed it and then put it back just slightly off center.

Who else could have done it but William and Emily, making it easier for Helene and me—just me now—to follow them?

It’d been a risky move on their part; the Corpses might have spotted it. The dead could climb ladders too, and it wouldn’t do to have an army of animated cadavers navigating the underground waterway and attacking Haven from below.

A very risky move.

But they’d done it anyway, and I thought I knew why.

Because, at this point, what did it matter? The world was ending.

I managed to push the cover aside and slip down onto a rickety old metal ladder that descended into darkness. Then, I awkwardly pulled the cover back into place, fitting it correctly this time. It was a job that would have been much easier with a couple of Hugos.

After it was done, I climbed down the ladder and felt my way through the dark, eventually stumbling through a broken service door and out onto the catwalk that ran along the subway river. Once there, I groped along, trying hard to ignore the squeaks of what sounded like really big rats. Far ahead, I spotted a light—dim but steady, like a single star in an otherwise pitch-black night. I made for it, putting one foot in front of the other, keeping one hand on the old subway tunnel’s grungy wall and the other tightly around the Anchor Shard.

The catwalk groaned and creaked with every step.

Finally, I reached the ruins of the 8th Street subway station.

“Will!” Emily exclaimed, running up and hugging me. “You did it!”

Behind her, leaning against an old concrete pillar, as motionless as any Corpse, stood the chief. As his eyes found mine, he asked in small voice, “Helene?”

I swallowed and shook my head. “She killed the Queen.”

He nodded. “Of course, she did.”

“We need to go,” Emily announced, her eyes welling up.

So the two of us helped William into the canoe and put him on the middle bench. He looked worse than the last time I’d seen him. The gash at his temple had stopped bleeding, but I noticed that the white of one of his eyes had gone red with blood. And when he walked, he reeled, almost like a drunken man.

“You doing okay?” I asked him.

He nodded. But it was a “what difference does it make?” kind of nod.

Emily and I paddled. We were going upstream but, believe it or not, that helped. Turns out it’s easier to control a canoe when you’re paddling against the current rather than with it.

You learn something new every day.

It took a while, but we reached the 15th Street platform without incident. This time, when the two of us helped Maxi Me to his feet, he stumbled and almost went into the river. No sooner had we managed to get him safely onto the dock, then his knees buckled and he dropped onto his back on the concrete floor.

A trickle of blood bubbled out one corner of his mouth.

“I’ll heal you,” I said, readying the Anchor Shard.

He caught my wrist. “Please don’t.”

“Why not?” Emily asked, a sob in her voice.

But I knew why not.

“You’re not done yet,” I told him. “I’m sorry, but you’re not. We gotta get back up into Haven and grab the Rift Projector. Then you gotta send me home.”

“Emily can do it,” he said weakly.

“No!” my sister—our sister—exclaimed.

I looked hard into Maxi Me’s eyes. “You’re the Chief of the Undertakers. You don’t get to die. I know what you’re feeling. You
know
I know. You just want to lie down here and take whatever comes, maybe even throw yourself into that underground river, just so you can be with her again. But you’re not allowed to give up the fight. Not yet.”

He glared at me. And I glared back at him, this older, balder, more bearded version of myself.

“Okay,” he sighed.

I touched the Anchor Shard to his forehead.

The ugly gash at his temple closed and vanished. An instant later, the white of his eye cleared. And, more importantly, his whole bearing changed. His shoulders squared. His head came up. And light returned to his eyes.

When it was over, William stood and said to me, “I was going to get her, you know.”

“I know,” I told him.

“I mean it. It was never the plan. But, once we’d found the Anchor Shard, I was going to send Emily and Steve back with it and stay behind to find my wife.”

“I know,” I said again.

“
How
do you know?” he demanded.

I shrugged. “‘Cause it’s what I would have done.”

He turned to our sister, “Em? You solid? Or do you need a shot of
Malum
magic?”

“I’m good,” she replied. But I could see she wasn’t. Steve’s death was like a weight on her thin shoulders, dragging her down. William saw it too, and he wordlessly pulled her into a hug. I could see Emily trembling in his arms, trying to be strong. Trying so hard.

I hate this place.

My future self stepped back from our sister and turned to me. “Will? How are
you
doing?”

“Never better,” I told him. It was a lie, of course, and he surely knew it. But so what?

That’s when we heard sounds.

They came from the darkness on both sides of the old subway platform, upriver and downriver. Shuffling. Soft but steady. Too big to be even the biggest rat.

“Oh no …” Emily breathed.

“They followed you!” William exclaimed.

And, for a terrible second, I thought he was right. But then I listened again to the approaching footfalls and shook my head. “No. If they had, they wouldn’t be coming from both directions at once. This is worse than that. We need to get upstairs … now.”

The
LAST
Last Siege of Haven

We climbed the long spiral staircase, often taking the steps two at a time, too stoked by adrenaline to worry about exhausting ourselves.

Below us, the Corpses had navigated the rusted riverside catwalks as quickly and smoothly as sewer rats. By the time we reached the top of the staircase, I could already hear them climbing after us. The dead are good climbers. Look at the way they’d scaled City Hall’s exterior wall.