Page 92 of The Undead

He plunged into the flames. I couldn’t see him clearly through the heat-twisted air, but it looked as if he came through the other side and embraced William. They rocked back and forth in a weird parody of dance, like lovers, like enemies.

The second bottle exploded into a fireball that shook the concrete under me. I felt the blast of heat from where I lay. The whole room was crawling with fire, flickering with shadows. I couldn’t see anyone now, not even Foster. Just the fire.

No, I could see Foster, after all. She was a shadow on the carpet, a jerking, twitching shadow. Who crawled toward me, inch by torturous inch.

She managed to make it as far as the shattered glass that littered the concrete in front of me, a sizzling red-and-black hulk. The stench of burned meat was overwhelming. I was too exhausted, too daystruck to move, but I kept my eyes open to see her lift her head to me.

She had no eyes. No face. Under the pinkly cooked strings of muscle, I saw the glaring white of her skull. She couldn’t have seen me, couldn’t have possibly known I was there, and yet—yet—

Yet she pushed one crisped black hand toward me. Not threatening, this time. Begging.

It took all my strength to get to my knees again. There was a brick lying nearby, probably used to prop open the door for the cleaning crews. I lifted it in both hands. Brought it down.

The sound her skull made was wet and hollow. She stopped moving. Forever.

“I’m sorry, Becky,” I whispered, and collapsed facedown beside her. “Oh God, please, just let it be over now.”

The sun rose and touched me with a creepy, seductive warmth—killing, burning warmth. In that one instant, it felt like God’s kiss on my cold skin, the most blessed and peaceful sensation I’d ever known ; then, like Foster, I started to burn.

My screams were very soft, almost whimpers. I’m surprised Maggie heard them, recognized the smoking bundle at the top of the stairs as me, but suddenly she was there next to me, shadowing me. When she saw the white flames pulsing out of my skin, she screamed and threw something over me, something dark and slick. She rolled me in it, in darkness, and pulled. She couldn’t afford to be careful, so every stair was a brutal jolt for her as well as me. I smelled more than wood and meat burning, now; the iron railings were softening in the heat, and I smelled toxic burning plastics. Maggie dragged faster, down steps, across a long expanse of rough-edged concrete.

She dumped me in the shadow for a few precious seconds while she clawed the gate open. The coat slipped and allowed me a tiny vision of the wedge of sky and roof above me.

And something else.

William watched me from the deep overhanging shadow of an eave. He crouched like a cockroach flat against the side of the building three stories in the air; his clothes were blackened and in rags, his exposed skin a suppurating nightmare. As I watched he crawled down, spider-quick, scuttling like something from under a rock. Toward me.

He had Adam clasped limply against his chest. He had what he wanted, but he was watching me—and Maggie—

I tried to scream. Corpses can’t.

Maggie, oblivious to what hung two stories over our heads, grabbed me and pulled the last few feet. I was filled with the smell of her sweat as she hauled me up against her and dumped me into someplace dark and close, reeking with the stench of oil. A dark lid slammed over my face. I heard the Volvo start up.

My lungs filled with cold, cold water.

Idled. This time, though, some part of me stayed howlingly awake and waiting.

He’d be back.

I’d better be ready.

Drive, Maggie.

Epilogue

Maggie

Maggie Bowman, in a Motel 6 somewhere on a Texas high way, looked down at the first page in her journal. She’d never kept one before, but this seemed as good a time as any to start, and better than most.

It was, after all, a new life.

She smiled thinly at the thought.

I got a call from Frank about ten minutes ago. Frank sounded good. His wife told him to tell me hello.

The IAD investigation vanished like snow in July. Nick turned over a leave,” and I am free to return whenever I feel like it. Meaning, after I undergo a psychiatric exam.

I’m not looking forward to that. The idea of somebody poking around in my brain with all this weird stuff locked inside is pretty damn intimidating.

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