Gravediggers (11 page)

As I dangle from the roof's edge and drop to the dust-caked ground, I see PJ and Kendra looking over their shoulders and lowering into fight stance. They've got the same feeling I have, a kind of weird extra Gravedigger sense: they're coming. We gotta go.

“There's a building,” I say, pulling my machete from my backpack and loving the weight in my hand. “A few blocks from here. It's got a bunch of boards on the windows and door that look kind of fresh. All the buildings around it are deep in dirt.”

“Great,” says PJ, sounding ready for battle. “Let's get moving.”

We run fast, staying low to avoid the cave zombies that come crawling toward the longhouse with their nose holes to the sky. All we hear are our soft footsteps in the piled dust, the hissing and moaning of the zombies, and, way off, like a typewriter in a church, claws tapping against slate. Every couple of yards, I hold up a hand to signal a stop and we watch as a group of spidery cave zombies go scuttling past us, no doubt headed to where we were last spotted. Given how creepy they are, I'm surprised they can't hear my heart thud-thud-thudding in my rib cage, but I have to assume that all that gear must have fallen apart in their skulls about two or three hundred years ago.

“How do you think they got this way?” I whisper as a cluster of three disappears around a corner.

“A lack of food,” says Kendra calmly. “Without any flesh left to devour, their bodies probably began to mutate.”

“But they didn't eat us before,” PJ says. “They could've.”

“Maybe they're too weak to digest us while we're alive,” says Kendra. “They were taking us somewhere to . . . ripen us.”

I'm about to tell Kendra that she's officially the grossest person I know when my eyes finally notice a series of indents in the dust up ahead of us—big, boot-sized imprints, not like either our Melee Industries boots or the weird skeleton prints of the zombies.

“Guys, look,” I say, nodding forward. Their eyes follow mine, and we all scurry toward the prints.

“They're old,” says PJ, and he's right, they're sort of half filled, like footprints during a heavy snowstorm, as though they were made a while ago, but they're definitely boot-prints, large and industrial.

“If they're this old, they can't be Dario's,” says Kendra.

“Then whose?” asks PJ.

“Let's find out,” I say, following their path. My friends slowly take up the lead, and we head farther into the darkness, until in the distance I see the building I noticed from the longhouse roof, a clay house with its windows and gateway boarded up, the boot-prints leading beneath the barrier.

There's someone inside that hut. And we need to know who.

Chapter Eleven

Kendra

T
he huts of Kudus are strangely shaped, given their geographical location. Indonesian architecture usually leaned on the very angular and pointed Austronesia styles. The longhouses and the massive temple in the background have what I expected from that ancient style—jagged points, gabled roofs adorned with jutting hornlike protrusions, and hard angles. But these huts are domed and rounded, their edges smooth in an almost impossible way, one that would require an incredible amount of proficiency with clay, straw, and other natural materials. Now, buried by time, decay, and dark magic, they appear as great green lumps of unhygienic
detritus
in our night vision (that's two on
detritus
, somewhat of a cheap shot this time around), like warts of the earth.

Even among these strange structures, the one we're nearing is especially unsettling, drawing us in with
fatalistic
purpose (two on “fatalistic,” as well).

The windows of the hut appear to have been barricaded somehow. Its few portals are entirely clogged with lumber and bones. It looks almost like a reversed beehive rising out of the ground, its ominous nature only emphasized by the corpses of its shelter brethren that loom around us in this dome of pure, clammy night through which we sneak.

And there's a set of footprints leading to it. Not fresh, but unmistakably not zombie footprints. Someone boarded him or herself up in this hut. The question is, is he or she still there
?

The closer we get to the structure's silhouette, the higher my heart rate climbs. A cold sweat beads on my brow, and I'm forced to remind myself not to swipe a mutant blood-coated arm across my damp forehead. God forbid I somehow end up with this terrible slime in my hair—its consistency suggests it will take weeks to remove. Assuming, of course, it doesn't cause my entire scalp to go bare due to its toxicity.

“Okay,” says Ian. “On three, I kick the door in, and we see what's inside.”

This is the worst idea I have ever heard. “Ian, are you insane?” I whisper. “Every living thing in this cave will hear the noise caused by such an action! We will essentially become zombie bait.”

“I side with that,” says PJ calmly. “Don't do it, man.”

“Dario could be in there,” mumbles Ian, his stare never leaving the hut. “O'Dea could be. We have to look. There are footprints.”

“Ian, this is a bad idea in any horror movie,” says PJ, trying to sound soothing but firm. “This is the mummy's tomb, basically. If it was closed up, it must have been for a very good reason.”

Ian nods. “Okay. On three. Ready?”

Ian's gone on autopilot, so I step between him and the door and put my hands out. “No,” I tell him. “Not a chance. There's a smarter way to enter this hut, and I intend to find it.”

As his shoulders sag and he exhales, I turn to face the barred door and consider our actual options.

Every crack and crevice, Kendra—scout it out; use it to your advantage. Pry the blockage off with the hammer? It doesn't look quite like that would work, does it? Or what about slowly pushing at whatever's filling the doorway. First, test your barrier's strength. Lightly press the item that's blocking your path and see if it resists—

“Three.” Ian's leg rockets up from his side and obliterates the boards filling one window of the hut. A deafening crack rings out through the entire cavern city, echoing for what sound like leagues into the dark.

“Ian!” I stage-whisper. “You
idiot
! You're supposed to
count
to three!”

His response is a dead-on stare and a matter-of-fact smirk. “I'm sorry,” he says, “was I not counting out loud?”

How I feel is at odds with common sense. The logical impulse would be to reach out and wrap my fingers around his corded and athletic neck. But some part of me feels amused by, and enamored of, his stupid attitude and straightforward thinking. I can't help but look away from him and do my best not to smile. Such a lummox, and yet so smart and . . . and
sharp
in his own right.

Don't forget that you had little to no idea of how you were going to get in there, Kendra
.
The lummox did you a favor
.

One by one, we heft ourselves through the window, cartwheeling to the cobweb-laden floor, Ian bringing up the rear with a quick and easy hop. The inside of the hut is about what one might expect—a wide circular room, one or two rotting tables, some old vessels made of clay and metal. The bed jammed up against the door is somewhat disconcerting but entirely justified given what has been lurking outside this hut. But it is the smell that is most discomforting, that stings our noses and immediately triggers my gag reflex, a smell not unlike that of the sewers we just escaped. Out there is an ancient death scent, a musky and mildewy stench of long-form decay and bulging spinal mushrooms. (
No, Kendra, getting a sample to take home with you would defeat the whole purpose of this trip; don't even consider it.
) In here, there is the septic stench of rotten meat and neglect—fresh death, death in bloom. Like roadkill.

“Pfuh,” hacks PJ, waving a hand in front of his face. “Whatever's in here, it reeks. Kendra, we were right—this was the worst idea we've had so far.”

“Why's it smell so bad in here?” coughs Ian. “The cave zombies don't smell that bad.”

My eyes scan the room, my brain doing its best to overcome the odor of the place and focus on our task at hand. At our feet lie the boards, their edges heavy with blackened lumps of mud, bone, leathery flesh.

“Whoever was in here was using pieces of zombies as some kind of mortar,” I say, nudging the split wood with my foot. “See? He or she must have killed one or two and then used their blood and body just as we used them—to deflect attention. It's ingenious, really.”

“Uh, Kendra,” says PJ, his voice going deep and hoarse, “I think it may have just been him.”

My eyes fly up, and I follow PJ's pointing, and nervously shaking, finger.

Beneath a table, in the corner where the left-hand and far walls meet, is a dead body.

It is not sprawled out or splattered like the corpses I looked at when I, preparing myself to be a Gravedigger after our jaunt on the mountain, googled “dead people” (a truly nauseating afternoon on the internet). Rather, this corpse is hunched over in a sitting position, its knees bent up by its chest, its back to us. Something about the climate down in the cave must have kept it preserved in that position—a flash mummification, if you will.

Though perhaps I am just unused to seeing a corpse that is not attacking me.

As Ian and I slowly approach it and round its front side, we see its face between the table legs—male, older; eyes, nose, and lips long since rotted away; expression relaxed, calm in death; empty eye sockets focused on a large pointed object clutched in his hands.

“It appears to be some kind of bone,” I whisper. “A tusk, maybe.”

“Looks like it's all carved up,” says Ian.

Indeed. As I crouch near the huddled cadaver and bring my goggles closer to the object, I can see the intricate web of sigils and swirling runes that cover every inch of the three-foot hunk of ivory, no doubt taken from an
Elephas maximus sumatranus
or
Elephas maximus borneensis
, the Sumatran and Borneo elephant respectively.

And the closer I peer at the sigils, the more I begin to see a throb of light, heavy and slow, emanating from them. Soon, I can feel it on my skin, can hear the rumble of magical energy pouring out of it. This isn't the loud, communicative scream of the sigils I read along the tunnel walls earlier today. These ones are strong but unmovable, powerful but quiet. They are not intended to frighten or warn, but rather to hold, to contain. Given its unspoken language, this tusk will feel like it weighs seven hundred pounds when I hold it in my hands, though it is in reality much lighter, I'm sure.

“What is it?” asks Ian.

“It's the seal,” I say, knowing I'm right as the words leave my mouth. “Every containment site has one—the dream catcher on the mountain, the
zemi
on the island. This is the magical seal of Kudus.”

“That makes sense, actually,” says PJ as he and Ian crouch next to me. “It's huge, and it looks as though there are a ton of really tiny sigils on it. This must have taken hours to carve.”

“Days,” says Ian. “Weeks. Geez, look at it.”

“Hold on,” I say, reaching out to—

Wait
.

Kendra. Stop. Use your brain
.
All day, you've been manifesting the powers of a Warden in ways beyond your control. Now, you want to touch easily the most powerful magical item in this cave? Enjoy your seizure
.

“Ian, can you grab the tusk?” I ask.

“Why?” says Ian. “You grab it.”

I open my mouth to speak, but no words come out. Blood involuntarily rushes into my cheeks.

“Or not, whatever,” says Ian. He grabs the tusk, and, with a dry crackling noise, manages to pull it free of the corpse's hands, a thick membrane of cobwebs stretching and tearing loose as he yanks. Up close, the tusk is even more magnificently carved; along its concave side is a spine of blue and green jewels, uncut and shining even in the faint light coming from our goggles.

“And look,” says PJ, reaching deeper into the corpse's balled-up body. His hand returns with a wad of ratty papers, folded haphazardly. Before I can scream at him to please, please be careful, he unfolds them and begins reading.

“What do they say?” I ask.

“Oh wow,” says PJ. “Listen to this . . . ‘My name is Joseph Savini.' ”

Cold strikes me in the chest and radiates along my veins. Ian mumbles, “Ho boy.”

“‘I am a hunter of the cursed, the living dead that stalk the evil regions of the earth,'” continues PJ in the hushed tone of a boy used to reading ghost stories by the glow of a flashlight. “‘For years, I kept the world safe from the hungry damned. But my family was slain by these monsters because of the stupidity of the Wardens, sworn to contain and protect these beasts from slaughter as though they were sacred cattle. In my rage, I came here to Kudus to free the masses of undead that haunt this sunken city. Instead, I found horrors beyond my knowledge. The cursed down here have transformed into strange new monsters thanks to the gifts of their foul lord. They are . . . lej-ay . . . leg-ee . . .'” He looks up to me, his brow furrowed over his goggles.

“Legion?” I ask.

“Right, right,” he says, and then goes on: “‘They caught me as I had just discovered this, the uniting totem that controls the Wardens' magic over this place. Through my training, I fended them off and hid myself in this hovel. I cannot say how long I have been trapped within here, only that the cursed are no longer clawing at the windows. I am . . . sluggish. I feel the curse of Kudus all around me, pulling me in. When I try to destroy the totem and release the dead, it won't let me. I need their magic to break it. To stop . . . ' ” PJ grimaces. “Welp, the writing is getting really hard to read . . . and there's blood.” He scans a bit and hisses. “Oh no.”

“Dude?” asks Ian. “Everything okay?”

“‘There is no hope. I am a fool. God forgive me. They are everywhere. Victoria, forgive me. Dario, Danielle, forgive me. Death to them all. Curse the Wardens. Kill them all.'” PJ looks up, his face tightened into an expression of disgust and sorrow. His mouth is downturned at its corners, as though he might cry; even toward a man who might have ended the world, my sweet friend has sympathy. “And then it's just scribbling and lots of blood on the pages. I think it's blood, but I don't know.”

“How long do you think he was down here?” asks Ian.

“Is there a date on the pages?” I ask.

PJ shakes his head. “Nothing like that. But he's not nearly as rotten as anything else down here. If I had to guess, I'd say he hasn't been here long. What, twenty years?”

“Probably more like thirty,” I say, observing the desiccated corpse once again and remembering Dario's revenge story on the island. “No matter how dry or damp it might have been down here, the level of decay this has undergone suggests that it—”

“He,” notes PJ.

“—
he
has been dead for quite some time.”

“Not long enough to stop smelling, though,” says Ian. “Those cave zombies smell like gym shorts, but not dead people.”

“True,” I say, “but this corpse has also been locked up inside of this tiny hut for quite a while. The cave zombies have a whole underground structure in which to air their rotting entrails. This creature has sat here in a ball, decaying, for quite some time. It's no wonder the rot has been contained, given this small hut.”

“You had me at ‘rotting entrails,' Kendra,” says PJ. He tosses the pages down and sighs. “But no O'Dea. Not even a sign of her.”

“This is still extremely useful,” I tell him. “Think about it—this means that Dario is almost certainly on his way, and that he probably knows a way in—and out—if his father knew enough to get down here and escape the cave zombies.”

“But we knew that!” says PJ, throwing his hands up. “We found claw marks up at the entrance! This doesn't help us at all! We're in the same place we were at when we got here, and O'Dea's still out there!”

He's right, Kendra. Panicking, overemotional, but right. What good did breaking into this hut do for you three? What clues have you picked up, other than a letter by a trained and established Gravedigger explaining that there's no hope of escape from this appalling place?

“We found the seal,” I tell him, pointing to the long white shape in Ian's hands. “With that, we can hopefully fend off other undead attacks and make sure that Dario doesn't succeed in releasing the zombies down here. Right?”