William Mark Simmons Undead 1 One Foot in the Grave

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pulled. The door was locked.
I fumbled with the turnset on the knob. No good: the door was secured with a
double-keyed, sliding bolt. I turned and stumbled down the half-flight of
steps leading to the lower level of the house.
The door to the garage was on my left at the bottom of the stairs. It opened
easily.
I entered the garage and closed the door behind me. That cut off the
smoke-filtered glow of the spreading flames up above. I took a step and banged
my shin on something solid.
Hold on, I told myself:
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Think!
Flashlight.
I fumbled along the wall and found the flashlight we'd always kept plugged in,
next to the door, for emergencies. There hadn't been any. Until now.
I didn't know how long the power had been cut off but the batteries still held
enough of a charge. The beam cut a swath of visibility through the smoky
darkness.
A black car . . . sedan . . . no. . .
Station wagon . . . no. . .
A
hearse
. . . took up most of the space.
There was barely enough room for the two coffins, resting on pairs of
sawhorses at the back of the garage. And a small table, the workbench,
actually, set with unlit candles, a crucible, and another bowl half filled
with long, narrow leaves some scrolls, an ankh. . .
Scrolls?
Detail was uncertain at this distance, in this light, but the text looked
familiar. Before I could move closer something slammed against the door behind
me. The knob rattled. but the door remained closed:
out of habit, I had locked it behind me.
"Kirsten?" I called.
No response.
"Jenny?"
There was a low growl on the other side of the wood.
I tried to picture the sound coming from a human throat.
Couldn't.
The door began to shudder under repeated impacts. Smoke drifted down from the
ceiling turning the flashlight beam into a Jedi lightsaber.
Time to leave.
I edged around the hearse. The garage door was locked and the mechanism was
out of reach, nearly flush with the car's rear end. Behind me I heard the
sound of splintering wood. It was inspiring: I tore the metal tie-rods loose
from their moorings and then punched a hole in one of the wooden panels with
my fist. The garage door made protesting sounds, but it went up without any
further hesitation. Smoke rushed out into the night air and I followed along
behind.
The windows of the van reflected the red and yellow flicker of what used to be
the second story of my home. I hesitated, thinking of Kirsten, and then ran
for the van. It was too late, now.
Too late by at least a year.
Chapter Nineteen
In my dreams the rabbi tells us to roll away the stone. We uncover the hollow
carved into the hillside.
"Lazarus, come forth!" he says.
The sloping ground opens and a figure, wrapped in grave clothes and spiced
linen bindings, emerges.
"Loose him and uncover his face."
I do as the rabbi bids. I step forward and tug the linen napkin from his face.
Only it is her face.
Jennifer's clear, clean features gaze back at me.
I turn, but the rabbi is gone. The burial place is swept away in a tide of
sand. The hill is now a pyramid and I hold in my hands not a linen napkin but
a golden mask wearing a serpent crown.
"Unbind me," she says. And her mouth is . . . right. Her teeth are white, her
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eyes bright and
unshadowed, the hollows are gone from her cheeks.
"Free me," she says.
I search the bindings in vain: there are no knots or loose ends to unravel.
"You will need help," she says. "Ask Thoth."
Hurry, Daddy!
I bolted awake at the sound of Kirsten's voice echoing from inside the tomb.
I stared up at the night sky, at Bassarab's face hovering overhead.
Felt the grassy mound of earth against my back, turned my head and saw dozens
of other landscaped hillocks, each with its own stone or marker to give it a
pretense of individuality.
"An interesting place to take a nap," he said. "Perhaps you are changing more
than you realize." He sat on my wife's headstone, leaning over to observe me
like some great, dark vulture. "It will be dawn, soon."
I turned my head to the east, finally noticed the colorshift of night sky from
black to deep cerulean at the horizon. "It was the only place I could think of
to go to," I croaked, my throat gone rusty with ground vapors and dew. "I must
have fallen asleep."
"Perhaps. Perhaps you even dreamed."
I sat up with an ache-induced groan.
We are such things as dreams are made of
, I thought.
"And our little life is rounded with a sleep," Bassarab said. "But did you
truly dream? Or did you make contact?"
"Contact?" Annoyance pushed the grogginess from my head.
"What did your wife tell you?"
I struggled to my feet. "She seemed to think I had been unfaithful to her this
past year." I tested my legs: they didn't seem entirely trustworthy.
"I asked what your wife told you. I was not speaking of the thing that nests
in her remains. Dance at the masquerade, if you will, but do not be taken in
by the costumes."
I glared at him. "What do you know about my wife? Or my daughter, for that
matter?"
"I know that they could not be undead," he said gently. "They were not
infected with vampire blood as you were. What infested your house was only an
illusion, a pantomime of shadows." He sighed, looking strangely human for a
moment. "Your wife and daughter are gone, Christopher."
"You don't know how much that comforts me."
"I am glad."
My hands balled into fists and then reluctantly relaxed: how does one explain
irony to someone who's been around about five hundred years longer than you?
"How did you find me?"
"It is the blood-bond. Your blood calls to me; if I concentrate, I can hear it
singing from many miles away."
"How poetic," Mooncloud interrupted. She was making her way toward us through
the maze of grave markers. "Lup� and I had to follow the fire trucks to his
house and then guess where he'd go next."
She gave him a look. "I can hear your blood singing," she mimicked. "Oh,
please
."
"How clever of you," Bassarab said sourly. "Where is Garou?"
"Back at the car. Dressing."
"And your quarry?"
"Got away. How about the creature?"
Bassarab scowled. "The same: got away."
"Whoa, whoa, whoa; hold on a moment!" I reached out and grabbed the lapels of
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his scorched greatcoat. "It couldn't have survived that inferno!"
"Christopher," Bassarab's voice was flecked with traces of defeat and
resignation, "you cannot kill something that is already dead." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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