The Undertakers: Night of Monsters Read online

“Coming up on 18th Street, dudes,” Dave reported from behind the steering wheel.

  I looked through the back window. No signs of pursuit. Spring Garden Street stood completely empty. It was late, the street a patchwork of shadows and empty splashes of artificial light. There wasn’t a “civilian” car to be seen.

  I listened, but I heard zilch from atop the bus.

  If the deader’s still up there, he or she’s staying quiet.

  “Turn up 18th and stop,” I suggested. “We don't want to do a drive-by and get spotted.”

  “Got it,” the Burgermeister replied.

  Then, as he started his turn, I said to Helene, “Stay on the rubber mat in the aisle.”

  She nodded and did as I asked.

  I raised my pocketknife and hit its 2 button, activating the Taser. Then I climbed up onto the nearest plastic seat and, balancing myself as best I could, zapped the metal ceiling.

  The convulsing body of a Corpse — male, as it turned out — rolled off the roof and went flying as the bus careened around the corner of 18th Street. His body sailed the width of the street and slammed sideways into sheet-metal parking sign.

  It sheered him in half.

  Both halves hit the sidewalk with faint but recognizable squelches. There the wormbag laid, his Type Three body spilling its blackened guts into the gutter, his arms and legs twitching helplessly.

  “Dude!” Dave called back. He’d apparently seen what had happened in one of the bus’s big side mirrors. “That makes … what … number thirty? You're on fire tonight, you know that?”

  I didn't reply. I didn’t feel triumphant.

  Just tired.

  “Will?” Helene asked. “You okay?”

  I met her eyes. They were like mirrors. “I'm as okay as you are.”

  She looked like she was going to say something else. But she only nodded.

  The bus shuddered to a stop, its bulk blocking most of the street. “We have arrived,” the Burgermeister announced grandly, setting the parking brake and killing the engine. “What now?”

  “Now we find a way into Steiger's lab,” I said.

  The three of us climbed off the bus, stepping once again out into the chilly Philadelphia night. It was now close to 3:00 a.m., and not a single car could be seen going either way on Spring Garden. Across the street and up maybe half a block stood a huge blocky building with a small parking lot and a single garage door — a big one.

  “This may sound stupid,” Dave said. “But don't it seem a little too quiet?”

  “Yeah,” agreed Helene. “Five minutes ago we were ploughing through two dozen medical deaders, and now there's nobody?”

  They were right. This whole thing smelled like a trap. Steiger, after all, knew we were coming; I'd told him so myself. Heck, I'd done the Undertakers version of slapping his face with a glove and challenging him to a duel! After that, he’d naturally gone back to his lair, hunkered down, and gotten ready for us.

  It's what I would do.

  “He knows we're coming,” I said. “But he doesn't know how we're coming. A building that big's gotta have a least one back door. We need to find it.”

  “They'll be guarding it,” Helene pointed out. “Probably from the inside ... just waiting for you to pick the lock and the three of us to just stroll in.”

  “That's why we need a diversion,” I replied. “One of us stays out here and does ... something ... to lure Steiger and his deaders to the front of the garage, so that the other two can slip in the back.”

  Helene considered this, while Dave exclaimed, “Sounds like a plan! Um ... which of us stays?”

  “I will,” said Helene.

  We swapped looks.

  “Okay,” I said. “What’re you gonna do? For the diversion, I mean.”

  “Don't know yet,” she admitted. “But give me five minutes. I'll think of something.”

  I nodded. I didn't like this. Even though splitting up had been my idea, now that we were actually going to do it, it left a sour feeling in the pit of my stomach.

  “Cool!” the Burgermeister declared. “Let's go, Will!”

  But I kept my eyes on Helene. “Be careful,” I said. “Okay?”

  “Me?” she replied, smiling a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes. “I'm not the one marching into the lion's den!”

  True enough.

  “Come on, dude!” the Burgermeister moaned. “Those Seers ain't gonna save themselves!”

  Also true enough.

  As Helene turned to leave, she paused and tossed me something that glittered in the uneven light from the street lamps. When I caught it, I saw it was the dog whistle. “You might need that.”

  “You might need it, too,” I protested.

  She shook her head. “You might need it more.”

  “Okay.”

  “Five minutes,” Helene said.

  “Five minutes,” I replied.

  Then Dave and I headed across Spring Garden, heading toward the big dark garage.

  The street remained all but empty — maybe a car every two or three minutes. Not much going on in this part of Philly at this time of night. Dave and I came at the building from its front left-hand corner, mindful of any windows. But there weren't any — none at all.

  An alley ran between the garage and the neighboring convenience store. Unfortunately, it sported a locked gate — wrought iron and about seven feet tall. Worse news: The padlock securing this gate was on its other side, and the bars were too close together for me to reach through, which meant I couldn't use my lock pick.

  “A tough climb,” I remarked. “But if I can get over it, I can open it from the other side.”

  “Want me to fling you?” the Burgermeister asked.

  I looked at him. He was totally serious.

  “No,” I said. “I don't want you to 'fling' me. I never want you to 'fling' me. Ever.”

  He shrugged. “Okay.”

  I gave the gate another careful examination. There weren't any good footholds, and nothing to really grab onto with my hands. Whoever had put this one up clearly hadn't wanted anyone in their alley who wasn't supposed to be there.

  Sighing, I muttered, “Can you help me over?”

  “Sure,” he said.

  “But no flinging.”

  “No flinging,” he said.

  Dave bent down and intertwined the fingers of his big hands into a step. I climbed up, using the top of his blond-haired head for support, and let him lift me — easily — to the top of the gate. Then I threw one leg over the top bar and dropped awkwardly down into the alley beyond it. There was trash here, a lot of it. Seemed as if everybody using the convenience store just tossed their crap over the gate, as if the whole alley were just one big dumpster. There were empty soda cans, banana peels, candy wrappers of all kinds, enough plastic bags to choke a horse, and a collection of soggy daily newspapers that probably went back years.

  “Ugh,” I groaned, knee-deep in foul-smelling garbage. But then I remembered my job and began working the padlock with my pocketknife.

  It didn't take long.

  Once the Burgermeister joined me, we waded our way through the swamp of trash, following the side wall of the garage all the way to its rear corner. There, as I'd hoped, stood a metal door.

  “Bingo,” Dave muttered.

  No lights. No guards. No security cameras, at least none that I could see.

  Way too easy …

  Readying my pocketknife, I tried the knob.

  “Cool,” the Burgermeister remarked cheerfully. “It's unlocked!”

  “Yeah,” I replied. That sour feeling was back in my stomach. “Real cool.”

  “Let's do it!”

  “No,” I told him. “This is as far as we go until we get that distraction.”

  “Oh. Right.”

  That's when something exploded.

  Both of us jumped at the sound, which seemed to come from everywhere at once — a thunderous boom that shook the alley floor and made cans and bottles ra
ttle in the nearby trash piles. Rats squealed and skittered out of a dozen hiding places, rushing past our feet in a tide of black fur and pink, hairless tails. Dave and I shared a panicked dance until the last of them disappeared around the building's rear corner.

  A second explosion rocked the world. Then a third. Firelight lit Spring Garden Street.

  What in the world did Helene do?

  The Burgermeister exclaimed, “What in the world did Helene do?”

  Sometimes I think we have the same brain.

  With some effort, I shrugged off my shock. “She gave us our chance,” I told him. “Everybody on this block's gonna be out on the street in the next two minutes. Let's go.”

  We opened the door and peered inside. A mud room: tile floor, empty coat hooks lining the far wall. Otherwise, it was completely empty. The only other door stood directly opposite us. Dave and I shared a wary look. Then we stepped over the threshold and crossed the tile floor, making as little noise as possible.

  Somewhere outside, there was a fourth explosion.

  Had Helene found a grenade launcher or something?

  The opposite door was also unlocked. I opened it a crack. Beyond it, a poorly lit hallway stood quiet and deserted. With a nod to the Burgermeister, I pushed my way in and scanned the darkness. My pocketknife had a flashlight, but I didn't want to risk using it. Besides, my night vision was pretty good and with the open doors at our back, some light did trickle in.

  Two doors to choose from this time. One was marked “Garage,” and the other, “Subject Storage.”

  “Subject Storage” sounded more promising.

  Once again, the knob turned easily. We peeked inside.

  Nothing. Perfect blackness.

  Alarm bells were going off in my head. This felt wrong. And not just a little wrong; big time wrong. My every instinct was telling me to turn us around.

  But then Michael's and Robert's identical faces flashed through my memory.

  As it often does, anger brushed aside my fear. I pushed the door all the way open and stepped inside. I remember thinking: This time I'm going to need my flashlight. I even managed to pull out my pocketknife in the split second before I realized that this new room had no floor.

  Dave and I dropped ten feet, a fall that could have been bad — real bad — if not for the soft bed of maggots.

  We landed with a squish instead of a thud. Instantly, I struggled to find my feet, all the while struggling even harder to keep from screaming. More than once, I've mentioned a concept I call the “Holy Crap Factor.” Well, this time, I think I'll call it the “Holy Puke My Guts Out Factor.”

  Steiger's Super-Maggots filled the room. Thousands of them. Maybe millions. Four feet deep, maybe five. I heard a moan to my left, and knew it was the Burgermeister. I couldn't see him — the darkness was just too thick — but I could sense his huge form rising up from the sea of bodies. My fear, already way up there on the Fear Chart, nearly graduated to full panic at the thought of my friend being devoured alive by these alien —

  Then it dawned on me that I wasn't being devoured.

  The Super-Maggots were sleeping.

  Dave cursed softly. I could hear him brushing at his hair and shoulders, knocking away dozens of little limp bodies.

  My one hand still clutched my pocketknife, so I used the other to pull the dog whistle out of my pocket and put it between my teeth. I didn't blow it. The last thing I wanted to do was wake these things up. But I needed to have it ready, just in case our sudden arrival acted like an alarm clock.

  Seconds ticked by. Beside me, the Burgermeister continued cussing like a truck driver. Not that I minded; it proved he was still alive.

  More seconds ticked by. Nothing happened.

  Then something did.

  I heard a door slam — the door we’d just come through, now behind us and well out of reach.

  After that, the lights came on — big overhead fluorescents. I blinked against the sudden brightness. Dave yelped in surprise.

  A voice said, “Welcome, Undertakers.”

  Oh no ...

  The room was narrow, maybe six feet wide, but high — its lighted ceiling a good twenty feet over our heads. The walls were smooth, made out of some kind of dark plastic, probably carefully sealed to keep the Super-Maggots from escaping. A single thick gray pipe ran the length of the long room. It was mounted about six feet above us, closer than the door but still out of reach, and positioned just to the left of the entrance so that we’d missed it completely when we’d fallen in.

  This trap was really well set. And I led us right into it.

  Finally, built into the far wall, level with the one we'd fallen through, a second door stood open.

  Steiger filled its threshold.

  The Corpse was smiling. I really hate it when they smile. He wore the same stolen body I'd seen him in last time — had that only been an hour ago? There was a gadget in his hands that I recognized immediately: It was the remote control he'd used to kill Michael and Robert back on the restaurant fire escape. Those boys had been lowjacked; we weren’t. But something about the way he was holding it made me think that little custom-made box might have more than one use.

  Steiger’s own version of my pocketknife.

  I readied my dog whistle.

  “You really are something of a bother, young man,” he said.

  I didn't reply. I didn't dare, not with the whistle in my mouth. Dropping it into this sea of maggots would be bad. Accidentally blowing it would be worse!

  “You!” Dave snarled. Then he tacked on a string of words that would have been shocking if I hadn’t heard him use them so much tonight.

  “I hope you like my little surprise,” the deader said, ignoring the tirade. “I had it prepared just in case you were foolish enough to make good on your … promise.”

  I'd promised to find him and kill him. It had been a stupid vow, fueled by the horror and rage of the moment. And, of course, he'd flipped it on me, just like Helene had thought he would. I should have listened.

  But at least I had the dog whistle and, with it, maybe a fighting chance.

  Steiger's next words made we wonder if he could read my mind. Now that was a scary thought! “Oh, I'm afraid the whistle you stole from my assistant won't be much good to you. These little creations of mine are sleeping, but all I need to do it press this button ...” He held up his latest gadget. “… and a mild current of electricity will run through the floor, waking them all and keeping them awake for as long as it continues. The whistle won't do a thing, Undertaker. But I can retrieve it afterwards ... once the maggots have stripped your bones clean!”

  Something happened next that scared me.

  Okay, that's stupid. I was already scared. But something happened next that scared me even worse than I already was — maybe the worst I've ever been scared in my life.

  Dave “the Burgermeister” Burger screamed.

  It was a scream of pure, primal terror — the scream of a proud kid who never screamed, who never imagined he could scream, but who now found himself faced with a death more horrible than his mind could grasp. All the courage in the world, and my friend had plenty of it, couldn’t bridge the yawning chasm of squirming, writhing terror that stood between us and that door.

  “It's gonna be okay,” I told him.

  Dumb, but it was all I had.

  “No,” Steiger said from his perch in the open doorway. “It's not.”

  Then he pressed the button.

  Part Three: The Hundred and One Seers

  We had a split second to live.

  Now, you'd be surprised how much can happen in a split second, the time it takes for a dead finger to press a button. That's especially true when Yours Truly's got a button of his own to press, and panicked desperation enough to press it fast.

  But was it fast enough?

  The florescent bulbs lighting this long narrow pit filled with Super Maggots immediately winked out.

  Nailed it! I thought.
/>   Then I was airborne.

  Something had grabbed me and thrown me straight up, with such force that my feet actually cleared the sea of maggots. For a second, I hurtled through empty darkness, flailing my arms and yelling in surprise and terror. A second later, something cold and metal and cylindrical slammed against my shoulder. Instinctively, I wrapped my arms around it, still clutching my pocketknife in one hand, though the dog whistle — the Super Maggot activating and deactivating dog whistle — tumbled from my lips and disappeared in the blackness below me.

  Somewhere, a voice yelled, “No!”

  It was Steiger. I could tell from the thick, syrupy sound of his rotting vocal chords.

  “Undertaker!” he cried into the darkness. “You and that accursed EMP generator of yours have vexed me for the last time!”

  I remembering thinking: Accursed? Vexed?

  Who talks like that?

  Then a door opened and closed, leaving behind a silence that told me Steiger had left us alone.

  Us.

  “Dave!” I called.

  “I'm okay!” he called back from somewhere directly below me.

  I swung my feet up and around the pipe. Because that's what it was: the pipe I'd notice earlier, and which ran the length of the narrow room — big and thick enough to easily support my weight. I didn’t know what flowed through it, through from what I'd seen so far of “Dr. Steiger's House of Horrors,” maybe ignorance was bliss.

  “Dave,” I said again, blinking into the inky blackness.

  “Yeah?”

  “Did you ... fling me?”

  There was a guilty pause. “Yeah.”

  “Can I ask ... what for?”

  “'Cause I didn't want you to get eaten!”

  With an effort, I managed to scramble up and straddle the pipe, which lent me enough support to free my arms and use my pocketknife's flashlight. Shining it around the long narrow room showed me nothing I didn't already know. There were two doors, one on each end, both closed, and both set too high up on the walls to reach. The pipe ran the whole length of the room, coming close enough to each door — but, from the look of things, not close enough.

  And, below, one of my best friends stood engulfed in about a million giant Super Maggots.