The Gates (2009) (22 page)

Reverend Ussher and Mr. Berkeley were in real trouble. In the first place, the risen dead were proving to be a great deal
cleverer than skeletons whose brains had rotted and turned to mush centuries before had any right to be. The main windows of the church were set about eight feet above the ground, which made them hard to reach without the aid of a stepladder. In the absence of said stepladder, some of the dead had formed a skeleton pyramid, with three corpses providing support for two further corpses, while a final corpse on top was using one of the stone gargoyles, which was complaining loudly, to break the glass. Two of the small panes had already broken, and Reverend Ussher could see a mouth grinning at him through the gap, a mouth with only a couple of broken black teeth still visible, which said a lot about dental care in olden days.

At the same time, more of the dead were thumping at the front door of the church and at the back door that led into the vestry, from which the verger had called the police to inform them of all that was occurring. The verger thought that the policeman who answered the phone had sounded a lot less surprised than he might have done, under the circumstances. In fact, he sounded like the dead rising was the least of his worries.

The vicar and verger had taken the precaution of pushing chairs and pews up against the doors in an effort to hold off the attacking corpses if they did manage to break through. There also continued to be worrying sounds from the vicinity of Bishop Bernard the Bad’s tomb, the marker stone of which was piled high with just about every available piece of furniture and statuary stored in the little room. Between the pounding and the laughing they could also hear what sounded like, “Free me!” along with the occasional swear word.

“Bishop Bernard seems most irate,” said Reverend Ussher
as Mr. Berkeley returned from checking on the storeroom. “I do hope you haven’t been trying to reason with him again. And he does swear a lot for a bishop.”

“He shouldn’t be able to talk at all,” said Mr. Berkeley. “Limestone or no limestone, he’s a corpse.”

“Mr. Berkeley,” said the vicar patiently, “in case you haven’t noticed, the dead have arisen, there are gargoyles bouncing around on the church lawn, and we have been insulted by a stone monk. Under those circumstances, Bishop Bernard’s conversational skills are unremarkable.”

“I suppose you’re right,” said the verger. “We need to do something about those skeletons, though. They’ll be on top of us in a minute if we’re not careful.”

The vicar grabbed a brass candlestick and moved to the wall of the church.

“Help me up,” he said. The verger leaned down, cupped his hands, and, with some effort, boosted Reverend Ussher up close to the windowsill, onto which the vicar managed to haul himself with some effort. There were now four broken panes in the window, and the dead had succeeded in breaking the lead that had surrounded them, leaving a considerable gap. As Reverend Ussher steadied himself, a bony hand reached through and grabbed his trouser leg.

“Oh no you don’t,” he said as he brought the candlestick down hard upon the skeletal hand. It smashed into pieces, scattering dismembered bones. The rest of the arm was quickly withdrawn.

Through the stained glass, Reverend Ussher could see the pyramid of skeletons tottering. He waited for it to draw closer
once again, and for the lead skeleton to reach for the glass. When it did so the vicar opened the lower half of the window from inside, whacking the skeleton on the head and overbalancing the pyramid entirely. The three top corpses tumbled hard, and broke various limbs when they hit the ground. Reverend Ussher whooped in triumph, but his delight was short-lived. Dozens of bodies in various stages of decay looked from the vicar to the broken skeletons, then back again. It was hard for skulls without much flesh to look any angrier than they already did, but somehow these managed it.

“Oh dear.”

“Oh dear what?” asked Mr. Berkeley from below.

“I think I’ve annoyed them.”

“And it wasn’t like they weren’t miffed to begin with. Well done, Vicar!”

Hurriedly, Reverend Ussher began to close the window, but it now appeared to be stuck. He tugged, but it just wouldn’t move.

“Oh dear,” he said, again.

“Don’t tell me,” said the verger.

“I really think that I should,” said the vicar.

“Go on, then.”

“The window won’t close.”

Below him, the dead began to form not one but two more pyramids. They were about to attack on twin fronts. At the same time there came a great crashing noise from the storeroom, and a single word was roared from within.

That word was: “Free!”

“Oh dear,” said the vicar and the verger together.

And then, just as the two pyramids of the dead began to approach the wall, a police car shot around the corner and ran straight at them, turning twelve rather innovative dead people into a pile of rotting limbs and broken bones. The car spun and came to rest facing the skeleton host, and Sergeant Rowan’s voice resounded across the churchyard.

“Right, you dead lot,” it said. “This is the police. We’re giving you five seconds to get back to wherever you came from, or there’s going to be trouble.” The dead did not move. To be fair, their hearing wasn’t great. In addition, none of them had ever seen a police car before, or indeed anything with four wheels that wasn’t being pulled by a horse or an ox.

“Your choice,” said Sergeant Rowan. “Don’t say we didn’t warn you.”

Constable Peel gunned the accelerator, and then released the brake. He’d had enough of demons and Hell. He was tired of the car smelling like poo. This was payback.

The car shot toward the ranks of the dead. Now the dead may not have known a lot about mechanized vehicles, but they’d seen what had happened to the last bunch who’d been hit by the big white cart, and were pretty certain they didn’t want the same thing to happen to them. Unfortunately, being dead, they couldn’t move very fast. In fact, it had been all that they could manage to move at all. Thus the vicar was treated to the sight of a police car chasing skeletal figures across the churchyard, none of whom was in a position to avoid being run over. The vicar was rather enjoying the show until Mr. Berkeley reminded him that some of their troubles were only beginning.

“Er, Vicar,” said Mr. Berkeley, just as the door of the storeroom was hit with such force that it split in half, the two pieces shooting across the church floor and coming to rest against the far wall. A shadow appeared, then became a shape as Bishop Bernard the Bad made his entrance.

Bishop Bernard had never been a handsome man. He had, to be honest, been uglier than a wart on a toad’s bottom, and the centuries spent buried beneath the church had done nothing to improve his looks. His skin was a dirty brown color, like old leather. His nose was gone, leaving only a hole, and his eye sockets were empty, although they now glowed with a cold blue light. He had kept a lot of his teeth, which were long and yellow and, Reverend Ussher thought, a bit sharper than they should have been, as though Bishop Bernard had spent some of his time underground working on them with a file. One leathery hand held a long staff: the bishop’s crosier with which he had been buried. He was also wearing the remains of his robes of office. On his head was his bishop’s miter. It was a bit tattered, and the front half lolled forward like a tongue, but it was undeniably there.

As, regrettably, was Bishop Bernard himself, who was now looking at the verger from out of those empty eye sockets, following his progress as Mr. Berkeley tried to hide behind the pews.

“He can see!” said the verger. “How can he see? He’s got no eyes. That’s not right.”

Above him, Reverend Ussher leaned against the wall, hiding himself from the bishop’s view and pressing a finger to his lips, urging Mr. Berkeley to remain quiet.

“Oh wonderful,” said Mr. Berkeley to himself. “Leave me to face him on my own without even a—”

Bishop Bernard raised his hand, which, like the rest of him, looked like old bones wrapped in brown paper, and extended a finger in the verger’s direction.

“Thou!” said Bishop Bernard, in a voice like gravel in a liquidizer. “Thou art the one!”

He began to advance on the verger, who understood immediately that in this case being “the one” wasn’t a good thing. He hadn’t won the lottery or, if he had, he wished that he hadn’t bought the ticket, because the prize wasn’t going to be very pleasant.

“I’m really not,” said the verger.

“Imprisoned in darkness,” continued Bishop Bernard, still advancing. “My name a jest. Thou art to blame!”

Mr. Berkeley had made the odd joke about Bishop Bernard, he had to admit, but it wasn’t as if he thought the bishop was listening. After all, he was supposed to be dead. This just didn’t seem entirely fair.

“I’m very sorry about that, Your Excellency,” said the verger. “I thought you were, um, resting. It won’t happen again.”

“No, it will not,” said Bishop Bernard, drawing closer and closer. “Thou wilt be punished. Thou wilt have hot pokers inserted into thy bottom. Thou wilt—”

The vicar landed squarely on top of the bishop, and felt something crack. He rolled across the floor and scrambled to his feet, the candlestick raised to defend himself.

Bishop Bernard the Bad had broken in half at the waist. To his credit, it had barely taken the wind out of him, as the
saying goes, not that there was much wind in Bishop Bernard to begin with. He released his grip on his crosier and began to crawl along the floor, his hands clutching at the ends of the pews as he pulled himself along, his attention still fixed upon the verger. Meanwhile, his bottom half climbed to its feet and began bumping into things.

“Vicar!” cried Mr. Berkeley. “He’s still coming!”

“Bottoms,” shouted Bishop Bernard. “Pokers.”

The vicar approached Bishop Bernard from behind.

“I’m very sorry,” said the vicar, “but this really must stop.”

He brought the candlestick down hard on Bishop Bernard’s head. It made a ringing sound, and Bishop Bernard’s miter fell off. The bishop ceased crawling, then twisted his head to look back at the vicar.

“Bottoms,” he said again. “Thy bottom!”

“Oh, do be quiet,” said the vicar, and hit Bishop Bernard a second time, then a third. He kept hitting him until there wasn’t much left of Bishop Bernard and even his severed legs had stopped moving and had just toppled over like two pillars joined at the top.

The vicar wiped sweat from his brow. He put his hands on his knees and tried to catch his breath.

“I don’t think,” he said, “that a vicar is supposed to beat a bishop to death, or even back to death.”

Mr. Berkeley looked down upon the remains of Bishop Bernard.

“If anyone asks, we’ll say he fell over,” he said. “Lots of times.”

There was a knocking at the door.

“All safe inside?” said Sergeant Rowan. “It’s the police.”

The vicar and the verger went to open the door. Sergeant Rowan and Constable Peel stood on the step, looking quizzically at them.

“We are most happy to see you, Sergeant,” said the vicar. “Happy, and relieved.”

“Sergeant—,” began the verger, but he was interrupted.

“Let me finish, Mr. Berkeley,” said the vicar.

“Spoilsports,” said the voice of the stone monk from above their heads.

“Just ignore him,” said the vicar. “Now, perhaps—”

“Sergeant,” said the verger again.

“I said, ‘Let me finish,’” the vicar insisted. “Please! Now, Sergeant Rowan, we’ve had the most extraordinary experience, one that you might have found hard to believe had you not seen it with your own eyes—”

“Sergeant,”
said Mr. Berkeley, with such force that even the vicar was forced to concede the floor to him.

“Well, what is it?” asked the vicar. “Out with it!”

“Sergeant,” said Mr. Berkeley, “I think your demon is running away …”

N
URD HAD BEEN VERY
much enjoying his trip in the police car, with its flashing lights and interesting whooping noise. Furthermore, Constable Peel was a much better driver than Nurd, although, in his own defense, Nurd had just been getting the hang of the Porsche when the police stopped him and confiscated it. Still, he had been learning a lot just from watching Constable Peel control the machine, and he was wondering how he might go about making his excuses and leaving the policemen, in order to apply what he had learned to his own driving, when they had turned into the churchyard and Nurd had seen the risen dead.

That wasn’t helpful. It was all very well for demons to start pouring into this world from their own—actually, it wasn’t very well at all, come to think of it, but compared to the dead rising from their graves, it was a picnic in the park. It took a lot of serious demonic energy to raise corpses, and Nurd could tell that this was a particularly nasty bunch of dead people. If he’d
been wearing a watch, Nurd would have hidden it in his pocket before passing this lot on the street: thieves and cutthroats, all of them.

But that wasn’t what concerned Nurd. What he was witnessing was not the result of some accidental breach between this world and Hell itself. No, there was
intent
at work here. Evil corpses just didn’t rise up of their own accord; they had to be willed back into existence. And only one being was inclined to go around summoning brigands and murderers from the grave, which suggested to Nurd that a personal appearance by the Great Malevolence was imminent.

It has already been established that Nurd was not in the Great Malevolence’s good books. In fact, Nurd wasn’t sure that the Great Malevolence had any good books, since he was the font of all Evil. It would be a bit like someone who hated flowers secretly filling his house with pansies. Nevertheless, he had a list of demons who had disappointed him and he wasn’t the forgiving type. He also didn’t care much for demonic entities that disobeyed his commands. When you were banished by the Great Malevolence, you stayed banished. If you decided that you’d had enough of banishment, and were tempted to sneak back into Hell’s inner circles in the hope of finding a comfortable dark spot in which to mind your own business, then the Great Malevolence would inevitably find out, because that was the kind of bloke he was. Demons couldn’t die, but they could be made to suffer, and one of the problems with being immortal was that you could suffer for a very, very long time.