Back From The Dead

Chapter Twenty-Six

He was growing weaker by the moment, but Scott Bradfield was determined to reach his destination or die trying.

He was dying anyway.

Scott didn’t even pay attention to the police cars that were whipping this way and that during his drive to the Gaines house. It was hard enough keeping Dave’s vehicle in a more-or-less straight line. His left eye was gone, and blood continued to drip into his swollen right eye from his flayed scalp, making it sting. The flesh of his right cheek had been torn away, revealing tendons and gristle and a hint of jawbone. His breath was coming in rasping gasps, made worse by the deep gouges in his trachea. Likewise, he’d lost muscle mass thanks to Dad’s strong fingernails — who would have thought Dad would have had the strength to tear his biceps to shreds with his bare fingers?

Well, he had, and he’d done a lot worse.

Scott still didn’t know how he didn’t wind up dead like Dave and Steve. The last thing he remembered was his father launching himself at him, knocking him backward down the basement steps. He remembered fighting his father off in the initial few minutes of confusion, and he remembered hitting the back of his head at some point. Before he blacked out he remembered the other zombies coming down the stairs after Dad. He didn’t remember anything after that.

The next thing he remembered was lying on the ground, his vision blurry, pain rocketing from his head and face and arms. Through blurred vision, he caught a glimpse of Dave being torn apart by the guy in the Dr. Chud T-shirt and he was pretty certain one of the other zombies, the short skinny one, was wandering around the basement with a bemused look in its eyes. Scott could tell he was losing blood, that he was seriously injured, but he was alive. And he had to get out of that basement.

And somehow, amid the violence that had visited his house in the form of his father and those still unknown shambling creatures of the dead, one of Dad’s power tools had fallen off the shelf and now lay within easy reach.

Dad’s chainsaw.

Without even thinking about it, Scott reached out with his left hand and, ignoring the pain, grasped the chainsaw’s handle. He dragged it over and, with his other hand, reached for the ripcord. He sat up, chainsaw held firmly with his left hand, and started it with one savage tug.

As it roared to life, Dr. Chud turned toward him. Scott stood up and cut Dr. Chud in half as the zombie lurched over to him. Dr. Chud went down in a spray of blood, his guts splashing on the floor to land wetly at his feet. Scott stepped around Dr. Chud’s dismembered torso and brought the whirling blade down on the short-and-skinny zombie, who gave one semi-frightened bleating noise before being chewed up and spit out.

The other zombies had left the basement, and presumably the house. Scott had taken a quick look around, then turned his attention back to Dr. Chud, who had fallen in such a way that he’d landed on the open wound that bisected his torso. He looked like he was growing out of the basement floor. Dr. Chud waved his arms toward Scott and opened his mouth in a silent hiss. The floor around his torso was wet with blood; more ran out of Dr. Chud’s mouth. The zombie’s eyes were open and blank, like the eyes of a cow. Scott grimaced and brought the whirring blade of the chainsaw down on Dr. Chud’s head. “Here you go, you fucker.” The chainsaw cleaved through Dr. Chud’s head, dividing it neatly in two. Dr. Chud’s skull split down the middle, presumably his brain separating at their hemispheres perfectly, and the body flopped backward on the floor.

Scott had paused, his eyes lighting on the short, skinny zombie. It wasn’t nearly as mobile as Dr. Chud, and seemed to be having a hard time trying to maneuver itself. No way was it getting out of here without legs.

Scott had headed up the stairs, the blade of the chainsaw wielded like a weapon. He was able to make it out of the house and outside where he quickly dashed over to Dave’s car. He’d clawed the door open and got inside, dropping the chainsaw on the backseat. For a moment he’d almost passed out in the front seat.

He’d grabbed Dave’s keys — they were sitting in the drink container in the center island between the front bucket seats — and started the car. He’d backed it down the driveway and headed out of the development.

And now he was nearing his final destination.

Scott turned down Maple Drive. He’d taken a roundabout route to the Gaines house because he wanted to avoid driving down Main Street. Every time he passed a street that fed into Main Street he detected heavy police presence. Several times he’d heard amplified voices, had even seen Army vehicles turning into the various residential streets that snaked off from Main Street. Scott had turned on the radio to hear what was going on and the news brought him up to date. The National Guard had been called in. A shitload of them from what it sounded like. The entire county was surrounded by the military, and troops were arriving from Fort Detrick, Maryland. He’d heard sirens and the steady whirring of helicopters flying overhead, so he knew the military and the police were stepping in to destroy as many of the zombies as possible. That was fine with Scott. In fact, he hoped they would step up their assault.

It would provide him with the perfect cover for what he needed to do.

Scott’s left arm started to twitch and he almost lost control of the car. He stopped, the vehicle jerking, and he took a deep breath. He wasn’t far now. If he could just get there…

It didn’t matter if Count Gaines wasn’t home. As long as he got inside Tim’s house, he would wait.

Better yet, if his parents were home that would be even better.

He was pretty sure Tim’s parents didn’t possess any weapons. They’d always struck him as pansy-assed liberals, the kind that wanted to take everybody’s guns away. That would make them pretty easy to take down with a chainsaw.

Either way, he was getting even with Count Gaines.

And if that meant getting even with him by killing his parents, so be it.

Scott Bradfield gained control of his arm again. He took a deep breath, then took the steering wheel and crept forward.

A moment later he made a left hand turn down Count Gaines’s street. He ignored the few people who were standing outside, staring up at the military helicopters that were flying overhead toward destinations unknown.

Scott felt a tinge of excitement as he drew to the curb next door to Gaines’s townhouse. Both his parent’s vehicles were in the driveway.

Grinning, Scott turned off the car, reached into the backseat for the chainsaw. He grunted with the effort it took to lift the heavy tool. Another burst of pain exploded through his body, tingling his limbs. He felt woozy again. He fought the feeling, then regained his strength.

He took a deep breath, feeling more in control. Then he opened the driver’s side door and, chainsaw in hand, limped his way to Count Gaines’s house.

Tim Gaines had been standing with his ear practically to the wall of the cell near the door, listening to what was going on outside, when he heard footsteps approach.

Tim stepped back as the door was unlocked.

Officer Clapton stepped inside. He looked worse than he had earlier this morning. Dark circles rimmed his eyes, which were bloodshot. “I just talked to your mother. The author of Back From the Dead called your house today looking for you.”

At first Tim didn’t know what he was talking about, but then he remembered his hastily-written email last night to William Sawyer. “Really? What did she say?”

“What she told me managed to confuse me even more.” Officer Clapton’s eyes looked haunted. “Guy couldn’t believe this could happen.”

“I don’t think any of us did,” Tim said.

“I just got word from a unit of State Police and National Guardsmen that had been dispatched to the Bradfield residence.”

Hearing this news was a shock to Tim’s system. “What happened?”

“When the State Police and National Guard got there the place was empty, but it looked like those things had been there.” Clapton entered the cell and stood near the lone bunk. The door to the cell was open and the conversing voices that had seemed only muted before were now more discernable. “They found several zombies that were…well, dead is the only word I can think of to describe them. They’ve been put down. There were at least four, probably five in the basement in various stages of dismemberment. Our guys came across a few that were still mobile that were roaming around at the rear of the property. They were forced to open fire when they came under attack by these things. One of them was identified as Tom Bradfield.”

“Tom?”

“Yeah. We still don’t know what happened. They’re still investigating the scene now, but so far only Tom Bradfield has been positively identified.”

“What about Scott?”

“Don’t know about him yet. They’re still working at containing the scene. But get this…” Clapton leaned forward against the table. “Two of the bodies they found were old. Officer Slick, from the State Police, tells me they look like they’ve been dead and buried for twenty years or more. The closest cemetery is on the grounds of the Manheim Church of the Brethren, and all of those bodies have been accounted for. Those corpses had headed south, toward Lancaster. Besides, there’s no way they could’ve made it to the Bradfield estate in that time. But get this…your mother told me that William Sawyer told her that in order for this spell to work it would require a dead human body. That if done correctly it probably wouldn’t have worked until they brought the bodies of their victims to the spot and buried them. But the way Gordon did the spell…he must have screwed it up or something, because he actually unwittingly performed another spell, one that was more…liberal in its use of raising the dead.”

“More liberal?”

“Yeah. It had no safeguards built in. But in order for it to work, a dead human body was required. Gordon wouldn’t have known this, but he wasn’t an expert either. Anyway, he did the spell thinking he was performing the one that would have only resurrected his chosen victims, but instead this other spell was set forth. And…the power or spiritual force it let loose did what it was called forth to do. It occupied the body of a dead human being, in this case two of them that just happened to be buried nearby.”

Tim made the connection quickly. “Those old bodies Officer Slick found at the Bradfield place?”

Clapton nodded. “Yeah. I sent a team out to Zuck’s Woods and they just sent back word of a grave that had been dug up. Said it looked like whatever was in there dug its way out, not in. We’re working at getting a forensic team out there now. We should know more shortly. Your mother passed on my cell phone number to William Sawyer; he’s researching this thing now.”

Tim’s mind was racing. “Do my folks know about the bodies found at the Bradfield place?”

“Not yet.” Officer Clapton sighed. He sat down. It looked like the events of the past twenty-four hours and being up for the past two days were taking their toll. “We’ve got the National Guard and troops from Fort Detrick coming in, and they’re doing a bang-up job at making sure these goddamn things stay down once they get up. It’s not like the movies where a shot to the head does it. Its taking total dismemberment.”

“Oh, man!”

Officer Clapton continued, as if he were talking to himself. “We’ve managed to capture a few of them, and some scientists are down from New York. They’re trying to find a way to restrain them so they can be studied. The goddamn news media is having a field day with this. Meanwhile, people are panicking, downtown Lancaster is in chaos, and looky-loos from out of the county are flocking in to watch the freakshow.”

“What about my folks? Are they coming?”

“No. I told them I wanted them to stay home for their own safety.”

“Oh.” Tim frowned. He was hoping his parents would have been here by now to secure his release.

“I do have good news, though,” Officer Clapton said. For the first time there was a hint of promise in his features. “It looks like this spell is losing its power.”

“Really? How so?”

“It hasn’t spread beyond the county, for one thing.” Clapton sighed. “We’ve been maintaining contact with cemeteries and funeral homes throughout the county. Only a handful of them from the general vicinity of the initial breakout have reported this rising from the dead phenomenon. The furthest it’s traveled is maybe five miles outside the perimeter. At the rate it spread this morning, it should have gone well into York and Berks Counties and probably into Maryland by now, but it hasn’t. It’s like it just stopped and then started weakening. Hell, it almost seems like the spell itself is over. Like it’s lost its strength and has ended entirely.”

“Really?” Tim wondered how this was possible.

“Yeah. It’s made it a hell of a lot easier to kill the remaining zombies.”

“So the people that’ve been resurrected…even though the spell itself isn’t spreading, its still powerful enough to animate the dead?”

“That’s what it seems like. It’s like whatever remaining strength the spell has, its being used in animating the dead that were affected late last night and early this morning. It’s lost all its strength in spreading, and it doesn’t seem to be affecting new people.”

“That would take other murders, right?” Tim mused aloud. “I mean…if the zombies were killing the living, they were spreading this spell, or this virus, or whatever it was.” He looked at Officer Clapton. “That would mean something was commanding them to spread itself. But if the zombies are being killed, that’s weakening the spell somewhat so…” Tim frowned. It didn’t make sense that the spell would peter out like that. In Back From the Dead, the only thing that could end the spell was the magician. Tim wracked his brain trying to think of other scenes of black magic from various horror novels he’d read in an attempt at explaining to himself why the spell Gordon conjured could suddenly lose steam. He couldn’t think of anything.

“Anyway, we’re still telling everybody to stay inside as a precaution,” Officer Clapton continued. He looked at Tim and managed a smile. “It looks like we’re getting things under control. I can take you home if you’d like.”

“Really?” At the mention of going home, Tim completely forgot about figuring out why Gordon’s spell was ending.

“Yeah.” Officer Clapton rose to his feet. “It’s the least I could do. I feel bad about the last few days. What happened to you shouldn’t have happened, and I’m sorry if I came across as…well…as a hard-ass — ”

“It’s okay,” Tim said.

“No, it’s not okay.” Officer Clapton shook his head. “I imagine things are going to be a lot different in the next few weeks, what with Tom Bradfield dead. He would have been a major thorn in your side. One of our detectives paid him a visit earlier this morning to try to talk to Scott, and Tom wouldn’t let them. Told them we had to refer all questions to his lawyer.”

“You think Tom Bradfield knew what was going on?”

“You want my opinion?”

“Yeah.”

“He knew something. One of the reports I heard was that somebody was trying to paint that guesthouse to cover up all the bloodstains that were found.”

Tim felt a sense of vindication. Proof that he was telling the truth! “No shit?”

“No shit, buddy.” Officer Clapton clapped Tim on the back. “Come on. Let’s get you home.”

And with that, Tim followed Officer Clapton out of the room. He couldn’t wait to get home.

Tim Gaines felt better the closer they got to home.

He’d never seen the streets of Lancaster city, much less the surrounding towns and suburbs, so crowded with police cars and military vehicles. It seemed like there was one military jeep or police car on every other intersection. Twice they passed parking lots that contained larger military vehicles designed to transport soldiers. Cops were directing traffic in some places, steering pedestrians and commuters away from certain areas. Officer Clapton had to show his shield once on the drive to Spring Valley when they reached a checkpoint. Tim tried to pay attention to what was going on by listening to the police band in the car, but had a hard time deciphering all the jargon. It sounded like things were getting under control. Self-containment units had been dispatched to all corners of the affected area, and the National Guard had set up checkpoints at various locations heading in and out of the county. The last report of a dispatch (which Tim figured meant a mass extermination of zombies) was fifteen minutes ago, on the west side of Lititz. The primary problem now seemed to be the news media, which had descended on the towns of Spring Valley and Lititz in droves.

The view from the back seat behind the wire-mesh that separated him and Officer Clapton provided a good view of what was happening. Tim took it all in, feeling better about the situation, but still worried about Chelsea and his parents. He was also worried about George, Al, and their families. “Have you heard anything about George Ulrich and Al Romero?” Tim asked.

“I haven’t,” Officer Clapton said. “But if it’ll help put your mind at ease, most people in Spring Valley are fine. The only areas that suffered serious infection were the neighboring communities that bordered Zuck’s Woods. I think your friends live far enough outside that area.”

Tim nodded. True enough. Still…

Officer Clapton made a right turn down his street. The last police vehicle they’d passed was at the entrance of their development. Almost home.

As they drew up to the house, they passed a car that had been parked on the wrong side of the street, but Tim didn’t think anything of it. The people that lived across the street had friends that sometimes pulled into their side of the street the wrong way. He was surprised he didn’t see more haphazardly parked vehicles this morning. At least his folks were still home.

As they pulled up behind his parent’s vehicles, Officer Clapton’s cell phone rang. Officer Clapton stopped the car and reached for his phone. “Go on up, I’ll be there in a minute.”

“Okay,” Tim said. He stepped out of the car and took a step toward the front door.

From behind him, Officer Clapton: “Mr. Sawyer! Good to talk to you!” Pause. “Well, things seem to be getting — “

Tim tuned Officer Clapton out as he drew closer to the front door, which was wide open.

Something was wrong.

It was an instinctual feeling, the way you know a trip to the dentist to have a wisdom tooth pulled is going to be painful even though you’ve never had one done before. It was just a given. Tim felt something bad had happened and that something even worse was lying in wait for him beyond the front door to his home.

The smart thing to do would be to call out to Officer Clapton.

Tim rushed to the front porch, opened the screen door and burst through the entrance. As he did, the front door banged back and closed shut on its backward momentum. His mom’s voice came through, her voice clear, concise, and commanding. “Lock the door, Timmy, don’t let them in!”

Tim reached behind him and automatically locked the front door. He was deathly afraid now.

He smelled blood.

Sweat.

Death.

Tim took a step into the darkened living room and almost tripped over the prone figure that lay before him. He prodded it with the toe of his sneaker. At first Tim didn’t think it could be a body. The way it was positioned, lying headfirst against the wall…it seemed out of joint. It was moving, that much was evident by the way whoever it was kept trying to raise itself up, but it wasn’t until Tim got a closer look that he realized two things. One, the person lying before him was headless, and two, it was Scott Bradfield.

“Oh shit,” Tim moaned. He took a step into the kitchen…

…into a charnel house.

The first thing he noticed was the chainsaw. It’s stark contrast against the rest of the kitchen leaped out at him, prominent in painting an accurate picture of what had occurred here. The chainsaw’s still blade was deep red. Great splashes of blood stained the walls, the cabinets, the refrigerator and stove, the floor, even the ceiling.

Sitting in the center of the kitchen was Scott Bradfield’s head. It was lying perfectly positioned on its neck stump, facing the living room. His eyes were open. They rolled up, zeroed in on Tim and his face turned into a grimace of hate. Scott opened his mouth and if Tim were in his right mind he would think Scott was trying to communicate with him.

But Tim Gaines wasn’t in his right mind.

His parents were lying on the floor near Scott’s head. His father leaning against the stove, his breath coming in rasping gasps, his mother on her back, legs splayed up against the dishwasher. Dad still clutched the large butcher knife he’d used to decapitate Scott. His chest and face bore large wounds that wept copious amounts of blood.

His mother looked at him, her eyes showing a faraway type of look. Her left arm was severed at the elbow. Her face was white. “Lock the door, Timmy. They’re on the loose. They’re on the loose and your father…your father…”

“Shhh, it’s okay, Mom,” Tim knelt down beside his mother. He felt the first biting sting of tears spring to his eyes.

A large chunk of flesh had been torn out of Mom’s throat. She was lying in a rapidly spreading pool of blood. It was a wonder she wasn’t dead already. She fixed Tim with her gaze. Tim could tell she was fighting a losing battle at staying conscious. “Tim, I feel…I feel…”

“I’m gonna get help, Mom.” Tim forced himself to his feet.

“Tim, he’s here…he’s right over there and your father…your father…he saved me…he…he was so brave, Timmy, he — ”

“I know Mom, I know.” Tim kissed his mother’s forehead. He didn’t even want to think about how the battle with Scott had gone down, didn’t even want to know what it had taken to fight him off the way they obviously had. Tim forced himself to walk away from his mother. He headed to the front door, intending to open it up and call to Officer Clapton. He had to get help and he had to do it fast before —

There was a rap on the back door.

Tim stopped, turned around. Standing on the back deck, almost splayed against the sliding glass door, was Chelsea. She was looking in the house, her expression stoned, vacant. She raised her right hand and brought it against the glass door again, making a slipping, sliding sound…

…streaking the glass with brownish-red blood.

“Oh my God, Chelsea,” Tim whispered.

The front of her white T-shirt was stained a dark maroon. Tim could clearly see the massive wound on the side of her neck, as well as the teeth on the left side of her face from the flesh that had been stripped away from her cheek.

For a minute Tim was transported back to the night he’d fallen in love with Chelsea on their first date a week ago. The scent of the sweet summer night, the soft brush of her lips against his, the warmth of her body as they held each other in the front seat of her car.

The way she’d snuck back to his house that night, after his parents had gone to bed, and he was sitting up in the living room with the laptop and she’d tapped on the sliding glass door to get his attention.

Much like she was doing now.

Tim stood rooted to the spot. He was confused. He had to help his parents, had to help Chelsea, had to —

It was too late.

And as soon as he realized that simple fact, he accepted it. He couldn’t change it. Couldn’t make things better by summoning Officer Clapton. What could he do? Give them mouth-to-mouth resuscitation? Stem the bleeding? They’d already pretty much bled out. They were dying, would be dead in minutes —

There was only one thing he could do.

Tim went to the living room and threw the deadbolt closed on the front door.

Then he stepped back into the kitchen to open the sliding glass door and let Chelsea in.