The Dead by Mark E. Rogers

Author:Mark E. Rogers [Rogers, Mark]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: thriller

They started on their way. This had once been the wealthiest neighborhood in Bayside Point; some very snotty families had lived here, old resort money. Now their fine big houses were nothing but wreckage, and who knew what had become of the inhabitants? In spite of everything, Gary smiled at the thought of the rich laid low. He’d always had a leveling streak.

But us peasants are getting collectivized too, snapped a voice in his head, sounding suspiciously like Max’s. Being turned into a living corpse is a pretty high price to pay for equality.

No arguing with that.

Go ahead, Gary thought. Shatter my idealism.

Crossing a broad lawn, the group rounded the corner of a gutted mansion. Looking through the windows in the ruin’s tall brick wall, they saw that the first floor had collapsed completely into the cellar; no hiding place there.

“Too close to the van anyway,” Steve said. “One of the first places they’ll search.”

Cutting across the block, they pushed steadily southward, keeping what cover they could. They approached streets with tremendous caution, waited endlessly to cross, watching, listening, screwing up their nerve; but once they decided to move, they shot from concealment like racehorses from chutes.

For the first three blocks, they saw no corpses, walking or otherwise. Then, as they neared a fourth street, they heard the tubercular sound of a diseased engine, and hid behind a charred facade.

Gary looked out through a doorway as a blue Thunderbird convertible rolled past, driven by a blonde female corpse, her hair blowing in the wind. A pickax over one shoulder, a huge dead man was kneeling on the seat beside her, looking backward. The car was doing about fifteen miles an hour; stumbling along behind it, clinking chains linking their wrists to the rear bumper, were two flabby, naked middle-aged men, hands tied behind their backs.

One fell and was dragged along on his stomach gasping and coughing, his flesh making a dry sandpapery sound on the asphalt. The other man seemed to get his second wind after that.

Once the T-Bird turned the corner, Gary and the others started out toward the street. Looking in the direction the car had come from, one block down, he saw dozens of bodies sprawled in the street, with several more strung from telephone poles. One of the hanged, facing away from Gary’s group, was kicking strenuously at the end of his rope like some monstrous jumping-jack. Was the man in his death-throes, or had he just been resurrected?

As they headed into the wreckage on the other side of the street, Gary glanced back at the kicking figure. The man wrenched free of the bonds on his arms and reached up to grab at the noose around his neck. Pressing forward, Gary didn’t need to see the corpse drop to the street.

Free at last, free at last, Gary couldn’t help himself thinking. Thank God Almighty, he’s free at last…

Strung along both sides of the next block southward were more corpses, hanging head-down from the telephone poles, swinging stiffly in the wind, dusted with snow, mouths apparently stuffed with turf.

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