He backed cautiously toward a strip mall across the street. None of them appeared to have noticed him — then one let out a baleful moan…
And was knocked down by a crushing blow to the head. P.O. Voorhees stood over the rotter and swung his widowmaker into its face. The skull split like an overripe fruit.
He handed the cleaver to Mark Duncan, who nodded in understanding and took it, giving Voorhees the shotgun in return. Jenna O'Connell had the revolver that Tetch's zombie had dropped in the City Hall lobby. The fallen rotter continued to flail its limbs as they walked past it, but it wasn't getting back up, nor could it moan.
The man on the horse, sitting motionless in a long shadow, saw that Lily wasn't with them. He decided to follow. The horse's hooves were eerily quiet on the asphalt.
The living moved quickly from block to block, staying behind businesses to avoid the intermittent clusters of undead that stood in the streets. Just after they left the cover of a small building, a rotter stumbled out the back door and saw them crossing the road. It opened its bloody mouth-
And a scythe exploded through its chest.
Duncan had taken point and was ready to quietly dispatch anything that got in their path. Voorhees wielded the shotgun like a club; firing it was his last option. Jenna tucked the revolver into the waistband of her pants.
"Please. Please." A voice called.
A man, shirtless, walked toward them. He held out a grasping hand and repeated, "Please." His tone was flat, without urgency or emotion.
It was a rotter, parroting something it had probably heard from one of its victims. Voorhees motioned for Duncan to hand him the widowmaker, but the latter shook his head and approached the talker himself.
"Please." The undead said mechanically. Saliva ran in thick gobs down its chin.
Duncan swung the blade into its neck and wrestled it to the ground. He sawed frantically through meat and bone until the gurgling head fell free. Its eyes stayed focused on him.
Voorhees touched his shoulder. "Leave it."
They were nearing the construction site. Bad memories, recent ones. Duncan silently vowed there wouldn't be any more.
42
House of the Dead
They'd surrounded the house.
Standing along the fence, studying the crumbling manse with its dark, broken windows, its ivy-covered stone walls, studying what for all intents and purposes appeared to be a home abandoned to the elements.
Yet, they knew that wasn't the case.
The front door opened. Simeon came out and stood in the yard.
He examined each of the undead that stood silently before the gates. A female with half her scalp missing, a scrap of fabric caught between her teeth. A squat rotter that had died in his teens, his muscular arms purple and streaked with cuts. An adult male barely holding himself together — his hands clutched at a ponderous bloated stomach that wept dampness through his button-down shirt.
They were out there, Simeon was in here. They weren't to be allowed in. If they did come in, they would take his meat. And Tetch would be angry; he wouldn't help Simeon find more nourishment.
Bailey emerged from the back door and surveyed the yard before him. Rotters were crammed into every available space along the fence. Some of them had wrapped their thin fingers around the iron bars and were tugging.
Tetch was still observing from the third floor. He heard feet scraping behind him and turned to see Prudence's silhouette. She tilted her head, expecting an order.
"Just go downstairs." He told her, in a strangely reserved tone. "Stand outside the study. Lily isn't to be let out. Is that clear?"
With a half-nod, Prudence left him.
"Prudence!" He shouted. She reappeared. "Bring Bailey and Simeon inside."
Another slight sway of the head. Tetch returned his attention to the yard below.
Deep in the swamp, huddled beneath the sprawling mass of an ancient tree, Voorhees whispered "Shit."
"We'll never make it past them." Jenna breathed. They could see the undead milling around the Addison house. They must have followed Tetch's truck into the swamp. For one terrible second she considered the possibility that Lily had been pulled — or thrown — from the back of the pickup and into the ferals' grasp.
There was a rustle behind them. She yanked the revolver from her pants and spun, but Duncan was in the way, and she couldn't she what was threatening them in the dying light.
Voorhees whispered again. "You."
The man on his horse stood before them like something out of a fairy tale. Duncan had become accustomed to describing things as something "out of a nightmare", but he wasn't frightened at all.
The former Death read little more than curiosity in their faces. He was no longer able to disappear from the view of mortal men, and along with that ability it seemed he'd also lost his unmistakable presence as the Grim Reaper. He was just a strange man.
"I can help you get inside," he said.
Jenna stepped out from behind Duncan. Remembering what Lily had said, she asked, "Are you an angel?"
"Not anymore." The man answered.
At the gates, the dead began rattling the bars with fervor. They knew there was something in there; as to whether or not it was meat, there was only one way to find out. They rocked against the gates and moaned.
The man in black swept the scythe through the crowd, turning his steed sharply in the soft earth and making a second pass. Before they even knew what was happening, several of the undead found themselves falling, legless, armless — then the scythe swung low and burst their skulls.
The horse collided with the horde and the man in black fell. He landed in a crouch, severing the feet of rotters as they crowded in around him, then rose to open their chests and spill their guts. They collapsed against him, gnawing madly — but before they could do any damage their energy had left them.
Voorhees watched in disbelief as the undead were killed by the dark man's simple weapon. The horse reared up and drove its hooves through the hearts of rotters, pinning them down so that the scythe could slice their throats with ease. Those who hadn't already fallen victim to the dark man began staggering away from the gates.
The scythe struck a padlock, and through a brilliant rain of sparks, the chains holding the gates closed fell away.
The undead grabbed at the horse's kicking legs and overturned it. They plunged their hands into its clay-like flank. The man who was Death turned away as a part of himself was torn to pieces.
Voorhees slapped Duncan's shoulder. Duncan sprinted through the gates, swiping the widowmaker at any rotter within range. One of them grabbed at the back of his shirt; Jenna filled the zombie with bullets, giving it pause long enough for the dark man to split its body from groin to gullet.
Tetch saw it all from the window. He ran across the hall into a room filled with boxes and tore through them. A pearl-handled.22 fell into his shaking hands. Hearing a commotion downstairs, he instinctively cringed behind the boxes.
"It's him," he was saying, over and over again.
Voorhees entered the foyer and caught Prudence at point-blank range. The shotgun kicked her waifish body into the stairs with a roar. She sat up. He aimed into her expressionless face.
Her head was pulverized by the second shot. Tiny fragments of bone fell over her convulsing body as it slid to the floor.
"LILY!!" Jenna hollered. Duncan started up the stairs.
Bailey kicked open a door behind the staircase and heaved an axe over his head as he charged. Jenna pulled the revolver's trigger. Click-click-click.
Voorhees shoved her aside and blew a chunk out of Bailey's side. He stumbled forward, bringing the axe down. Voorhees blocked it with the shotgun. They both fell.