The broad-faced Indian spun toward the voice. Jacob followed his gaze to where one of the riflemen pointed into the black gulf of the valley.
The snow was moving.
“But you destroyed them!” Jacob cried.
“Only the sunlight can do that,” the man replied. “We must hurry!”
Sixty yards away a swell the size of a house had raised from the flat landscape, pushed upward from something beneath.
“Go,” another man yelled. The others jumped on their snowmobiles and the engines roared as the throttles cranked open. They spun and raced for the far tree line, the icy wind nipping at Jacob’s flesh like a buzzard.
He clung to his rescuer with all the strength he had left, glancing back just long enough to see the huge swell moving closer. The snow spilled away as it shifted and flexed, revealing the leathery hides of a thousand mummified corpses surging forth as a single, monstrous mound.
It was a mass-grave come to life. Chaos made flesh.
The mere sight ripped the breath from Jacob’s lungs and clawed at his sanity. He saw bone and hair and muscle and skin, teeth and eyes and dehydrated entrails. It moved with unearthly speed, closing the gap between them with the horrific pace of a nightmare.
Then they were past the trees, plowing into the forest. Evergreen boughs slapped Jacob’s head and body, folding inward behind him to block his view of the madness pursuing them. A second later they shot through another barrier of bones. Shattered skeletons rained to the ground, knocked loose from their tethers.
The snowmobiles slid to a halt, their front skis grating on hidden rocks and branches. Jacob shook his head, thinking No! Don’t stop! even as an enormous shadow darkened the thin spaces between the trees. The forest went black. Even the stars vanished from sight.
The titanic horror hit the tree line and exploded into a blizzard of snow. A huge cloud of white filled the air, blasting through the branches to cover the area with an additional two feet of powder.
When Jacob looked up again, the monster was gone. Stars once again dappled the night.
He hauled himself off the snowmobile. Pain knotted his insides, but he limped to Kate and Sadie, dropping beside them and clutching them in his arms. Kate’s pants glimmered with blood, but her grip was strong when she hugged him.
Jacob’s rescuer stepped up beside him, laying a hand on his shoulder.
“We’re safe,” the man said. “The dead cannot pass the barrier.”
No, Jacob wanted to say, the dead can’t get through it, but the dying still can.
He looked down at his hand and moaned at the bony claws that had sprouted from where his fingers had been severed, watching as the muscle and tendons and skin reformed around the bite marks in his flesh.
The pain in his gut intensified. He could feel his bodily fluids turn to dust, his organs shrivel inside him. He gagged as his throat became a cracked desert and winced as sharp fangs burst from his gums.
He gazed at his rescuers and would have wept if he could.
They’d risked their lives to save his family.
Now he only hoped they’d be enough to sate the centuries-long hunger that was boiling inside him, at least long enough for Kate and Sadie to get away.
THE FINGER
1.
Through some ironic twist of fate, the phone call from the morgue came while Jim Cooley sat watching Frankenstein on one of the cable channels.
“It’s me,” Stuart said when Jimmy picked up the receiver. “I got one. How fast can you get down here?”
Jimmy straightened up in his seat, letting the half-eaten bag of Crispy Pork Bits fall to the trailer’s floor. “Hot damn, Stu, are you serious?” he asked. “When’d he come in? Where’d they find him—”
“I’ll fill you in on the goddamn details when you get here,” Stuart interrupted. “Harrington just went out to lunch, so we have less than an hour to do this.”
Jimmy grinned. “We’re really going through with it?”
“I guess so. Meet me at the back loading dock by twelve-thirty or the deal is off!”
He hung up.
Outside thunder rumbled across the sky like the footsteps of an angry god.
Jimmy continued to smile as he replaced the handset, then slapped his hands together with a jovial whoop of delight. “Hot shit!” he cheered. “The little bastard did it!” He jumped up from the couch and grabbed his jean jacket off the wall hook as he hurried out the door.
2.
Three inches of rainwater sloshed along the gutters and burbled around the storm drains as Jimmy guided his rusty Mustang down the alley that serviced the back side of the Hewitt County Municipal Building. The parking area at this end of the lot boasted twenty spaces, but only two other vehicles currently occupied the asphalt; Stuart Wyllie’s dented red Honda and a 1988 Ford that made up the third unit in the HCPD’s trio of squad cars.
Jimmy parked next to the sunken driveway that gave access to the lower loading bay of the building and got out. The rain continued to come down like a busted water main, soaking his shoulders and hair as he ran to the back door.
He rapped on the steel. “Yo, Stu? Open up, man!”
He knocked again when no one answered, letting his gaze flick to the old squad car as he waited. A smile crept onto his face when he thought of when he’d etched his initials in the vinyl on the rear of the driver’s seat back when the car had been new.
The door clicked and flew open.
“What the hell?” Stuart asked. “I never told you to knock!”
The kid glanced around like a mouse in a cat kennel as Jimmy stepped past him, into a green-tiled hallway outside the morgue office.
“I’m due back at the hospital as soon as Doctor Harrington returns,” Stuart reminded him. “We don’t have much time!”
“Don’t shit yourself,” Jimmy told him. “Now, what do you got for me?”
Stuart eased the door into its frame before speaking, and when he did, he kept his voice low. “Mexican male, no ID. Sheriff Picket said a trucker found the body under the I-30 overpass around four o’clock yesterday morning. He’s guessing the guy’s an illegal thumbing his way north.”
“Kick ass!” Jimmy cheered.
“Keep your voice down!” Stuart whispered, glancing up and down the corridor.
“Yeah, yeah—what else?”
Stuart ushered him inside the empty office, toward a door across the room. “We got him fresh,” he said, snatching a manila folder off the desk as they passed it. “Harrington pronounced the cause of death as heart failure two hours after they brought him in, and we just got the toxicology and blood work reports back from HCMC: negative across the board; aside from being dead, he’s as healthy as a horse.”
“Ah, man, this is friggin’ perfect!” Jimmy agreed.
Stuart pushed through the door of the autopsy room and led the way past the central operating table and body hoist. Jimmy shivered as the first drops of adrenaline hit his veins. His neck hairs prickled on end the way they did in his childhood, when his mother would drag him to the doctor’s office with an ear infection or pneumonia. Cold sweat sheathed his palms as his eyes drifted over the various items in the room: the table, the scales, the shiny stainless steel containers. The drive over had been easy enough—even a bit exciting—but now his emotions sobered as the reality of what awaited him began to sink in.
Stuart unlocked another door, and they stepped into the cooler. Six stainless steel storage lockers took up the far wall, but only one displayed an information card in the holder on the exterior of the door.