Gravediggers (10 page)

Maybe these ones are guards, sent to keep an eye out for us.
All quiet on Dayak Headhunter Boulevard. Keep looking—they're around here somewhere
.

Neither we nor the zombies see the sewer grate until it's too late. There's a loud crash, and a slotted section of the floor goes flying away. One of the two zombies, the one who almost detected us, hisses and rears back a claw as though to strike, but before it can, a bouquet of putrid congealed arms snatches it up and drags it down into the sewers, its partner scuttling off with a startled hack in its throat. The cave zombie's claws make a shrieking sound against the ground as it disappears down into the hole, and then its hisses give way to a chorus of crunches, slurps, and bubbling moans.

My face prickles with sweat and my throat swells shut. It's not just the horror of what has happened that wells up the terror inside of me, it's the . . . the
wrongness
.

“They . . . they're not supposed to do that,” whispers Ian, pointing as though he's caught some older kids spray-painting a wall. “Zombies only eat people and animals, right? They don't eat other dead things.” It's as though he's read my mind.

“Maybe, being down here long enough . . . they've resorted to cannibalism,” says Kendra, trying to convince herself. “Or maybe the fused zombies in the sewers have some sort of . . . giant, single stomach.”

But she knows she's wrong. We all do. So far, everything about them has been wrong. This evolution, or mutation, that the zombies have undergone down here in the caves breaks every rule I've ever learned about the undead, both on the big screen and through real-life Gravedigger-ing. Not just the rules of the zombies that O'Dea taught us to fight, but the rules of the movies, the comics, everything. Zombies are idiots—how are they communicating? And how is it the skinny zombies
aren't
trying to eat us—Lord knows they had the chance—but the strange mass of liquefied dead are eating
other
corpses? Even Kendra. If she has some kind of newfangled Warden powers, how is it she can still hurt zombies, something Wardens are sworn never to do?

What can we possibly do against an enemy we don't understand? What happens when our training and knowledge just aren't enough?

Josefina's words pound in my ears over and over.

It will happen there.

Your destiny lies in that cave
.

Stop. Backpedal from the edge of the panic. Breathe. Think about O'Dea—no. Don't even think about O'Dea.

Think about you, the Gravedigger. Fear is a part of you. It's who you are, at your core. And if you fear this place, and these things, so much, then it is your job, your purpose, to make sure that they never leave this place.

Find your friend, and leave here forever.

“There's a lot of city to cover,” I whisper. “Let's keep at it.”

My friends nod, and we push deeper into the impenetrable blackout all around us.

Chapter Ten

Ian

T
his probably sounds weird, but I'm sort of down with how much this is freaking me out.

I mean, okay,
yes
, this is maybe the scariest, creepiest, most insane thing we've ever done, and we have a pretty solid history of undertaking absolutely loco zombie-filled adventures in our time, but this, this takes the cake. Sure, we are covered in a camouflage layer of cave dirt and zombie blood, looking through night-vision goggles at a massive underground city some crazy distance beneath the surface of the earth, while weird, reanimated blobs of dead bodies drag wall-climbing, mushroom-covered mutants into sewers to be eaten. And look, the idea that O'Dea got kidnapped and brought down here makes me chew the inside of my cheek and clench my hands into fists; fear for my friend is what's driving me here.

But sometimes, it's cool to be scared. There are times where you just have to go ahead and be frightened, but you have to do the right thing anyway. That's what we're currently working with. And I'm pretty down with that.

No matter how chill they're trying to be, I know PJ and Kendra must be feeling something similar. PJ's off in his own world, acting intense and cryptic, but I know that comes from him doing his fear-channeling craziness; and Kendra's figuring out she's a witch/X-Man, which is kind of awesome in some ways—reading the wall, zapping back the zombies with her weird cold-touch force field—but I can tell it's also freaking her out a ton, and she's not happy if she feels like she's not in control. I wish we could all just ride the rise we're getting out of this and push forward, braving this nutso scenario, and instead there's just me being brave and them being weird.

To be fair, this place is in a whole different division from our past zombie-hunting experiences. With every hut window we peek in and piece of tattered tarp we pull back to look for O'Dea, I'm seeing stuff I didn't think was possible. I'm talking cobwebs that fill whole houses, skeletons frozen with their mouths in silent screams, dust piled higher than snow during a blizzard. It's like being on another planet or something . . . which is scary, but cool.

We duck into one hut to find the same thing as always—bones, dust, decaying fabric—when something catches my eye. There's a huge shiny black pile in the middle of the floor that looks untouched, like it shouldn't be there. No dust, no spiderwebs—just these weird, glistening black lumps.

“Guys, look at this,” I say, nudging it with my foot.

“Ian, leave that alone,” says Kendra.

“Do you even know what it is?” I ask. “Is there some sort of glowing symbol on it?”

“It's not magical—”

She gets cut off by a loud hissing noise that comes out of the pile, sending me stumbling away from it with a hard slug of fear to the chest. Suddenly, the black pile splits to life and becomes about eighty tiny disks that go roaming around the hut, swarming over our feet and up our legs. PJ cries out, slapping them off his pants, while Kendra sort of tiptoes around them, kicking at the occasional black, slithering oval that goes rushing past her.

“I was saying,” she continues in her hushed teacher's voice once the floor empties of creepy crawlers, “that they're cockroaches. Caves like these are crawling with them.”

“Huh!” I say. “That makes sense, right? It's like we're under the world's refrigerator right now.”

Part of me expects to get an eye-roll and some kind of insult to my intelligence like
Brilliant description, Ian Buckley
, but instead, she actually cracks a smile despite herself. “That's a comical mental image,” she says. “You're funny, Ian Buckley.”

“Thanks,” I say, and wait for it. She opens her mouth and freezes, lost in thought. I go ahead and finish it for her: “Funny looking.”

“
That
was what I wanted—ugh,” she says, shaking her head and grinning. “I promise, I'll grasp this ‘joke' concept soon enough.”

“Don't hurt yourself,” I say. “We've got all night.”

“Thanks for your patience,” she says sarcastically, but still smiling, and then we're just smiling at each other, and it's like the cave isn't so deep and dark and cold after all, like Kendra and I have a little fire going between us that makes this whole repulsive adventure worthwhile—

“Guys.” We both turn at the sound of PJ's voice. He stands there, blank faced, staring at us. “O'Dea's down here somewhere. Enough jokes.”

“You're absolutely right,” says Kendra, trying to sound
serious. My own embarrassment and guilt at getting sidetracked by . . . whatever I was feeling there is mixed with some anger at PJ. Leave it to PJ Wilson to remind you just how deep and dark and cold it is down here.

“Sorry, man,” I say. “I just want to keep the mood light. I can't wait until we can get out of here, is all.”

Something about the way PJ nods and doesn't say anything makes me uncomfortable. When I slap him lightly on the shoulder, I expect something, anything, out of the guy, but instead he just keeps staring straight ahead. Finally, he mumbles softly.

“What was that?” I ask.

“I don't think I'm getting out of here,” he replies.

The words hit me with a cold wind on the inside, way worse than any of the quiet dark chills I've dealt with today in this giant bat cave. Kendra stares back at him with her mouth open, stunned. PJ's voice just sounds so hopeless and serious, like this is a fact that he's 100 percent sure of.

“Cut that out, dude,” I say. “We've just got to find O'Dea. Once we have her back with us, we'll high-tail it out of here and leave Dario to the zombies. We've got this.”

“Our progress so far has been incredible,” chimes in Kendra. “You yourself have been exhibiting your skills as a Gravedigger—”

“I'm fighting off these things as best I know how,” he says, shaking his head. “But Ian's got all the strength, and you have these new Warden's powers . . . and I'm just here, feeling all of this pain and hopelessness that's been trapped down here for centuries. It's like this place has it out for me. I can almost smell it.” He sighs. “She was right.”

“Who was right?” I ask.

“Josefina,” says PJ calmly. “She had a dream, a vision. She said . . . that something happens here. Something bad happens to me.”

For a silent moment, Kendra and I drink this fact in. “What happens?” I ask. “Does she know? Did she say where, or how it happens?”

PJ frowns hard and mutters, “No. It's a blur. But there's blood.”

“PJ, that could mean anything,” I say. “It could be about our time on the island. It could even be just a dream.”

“Since we started fighting zombies, when has anything like this
ever
been what it seems?” snaps PJ. “I just want to find O'Dea before it happens. That way, you two can get out with her.”

“We will not allow anything bad to happen to you,” says Kendra. “All three of us are making it out alive.”

PJ's face screws up, and I'm waiting for the outburst, but instead he just exhales and says, “Yeah, sure. You're right. Come on, let's keep looking.”

PJ saunters away, and Kendra and I follow him, sharing glances of worry. It's obvious we didn't even get to PJ, that he's upset but doesn't want to worry us. It's a shame, and I wish he'd told us about this sooner, but . . . we needed him down here. Kendra and I couldn't do this alone, and we all knew it was dangerous, but scary Warden dream or not, we couldn't save O'Dea unless he came. We're a trio, a team. That's something that maybe O'Dea didn't teach me, but Coach Leider did while I was playing basketball—you have to be ready for anything, and you can't get all upset or out of line just because things didn't go your way. No raging at the ref, even if the call's a total crock. That's a personal foul.

Thinking about basketball gives me this shot of sadness and anger as I tiptoe through little mountains of dust and corpse dandruff. My folks are probably freaking out right now. They've probably looked up the film festival (which does exist—Kendra on the research tip), but there's a pretty high chance they've contacted our school and realized that they don't know anything about it. Which means they're worried sick. My dad's gotta be losing it, calling the hotel we gave them twenty times a day . . . and my mom is probably crying. God, is there anything worse than your mom crying?

No, you know what? Just like PJ, I had to be here. O'Dea needs saving. She's somewhere in this gross hole, and there's a total nut job holding her hostage. We need to be here, even if it is a massive bummer.

Wading through piles of dust and decay, we get deeper and deeper into downtown Kudus. The huts and dirty igloos turn into these longhouses that look like Viking ships and white mansions with Hershey's Kiss tops. Our wandering leads us into the middle of a marketplace, with rotten canvas stalls lining either side of a big square. There are even some mummified goods lining the cobwebby shelves, mummified bowls and jars dripping with dust. We make our way around the stalls, glancing in one after another, but each one gives us the same view of cockroaches, dust, and the occasional headless skeleton.

“All the same,” says PJ when we finish our seventeenth market stall in a row. “Maybe we're going about this the wrong way. We've still got a lot of ground to cover before we reach the temple.”

Kendra stares straight ahead for a second and then nods slowly. It's so cool to watch something dawn on her, like you can see parts of her brain moving around like a, what's it called, a Rubik's Cube. “You're correct,” she says. “Our current method is counterproductive. Besides, one doubts that Dario Savini would make his way down to Kudus only to hide out in a long- abandoned fruit stall. Surely, he must have more of an agenda than that.”

“There's been no sign he's even down here,” I tell her. “This all looks like no one's really touched it since the city tripped and fell down this awful hole.”

Kendra nods, and then opens her mouth and draws in a breath that's just hard enough to be a gasp. “Ian, that's it,” she says, grabbing my shoulder. “You're a genius.”

Coming from Kendra, about me, that's huge. Plus, she's touching me. And, well—wait. “Wait, how am I a genius?”

“I was just going to ask the same thing,” says PJ.

“We're looking at it wrong,” she whispers. “We've been looking for a specific thing, signs of O'Dea's or Dario's presence. But as you just said, much of this place has gone undisturbed for centuries. What we need to look for is
anything
different. Even the slightest alteration in the area is a sign that we're not alone.” She plays with her massive fuzz ball of hair, lost in thought. “If only we had a map of this place.”

The image of a map in my head—of looking down over the city—turns into a fully formed idea, one that feels equal parts crazy and totally brilliant. “What if I got up there?” I ask them, pointing to an old longhouse. “I could climb up there and get a good view of the city, see if I notice anything.”

At the idea, PJ seems to buck up a bit, like finding O'Dea beats the fact that we're in hands-down the most horrible place on earth (and to defend PJ's mood, this
is
basically God's blind spot down here). We approach the longhouse, and the closer we get the taller it looms. When we reach it, I'm amazed at how big it is, but I can't help but notice that its triangular roof has low-hanging sides that level out.

PJ and Kendra cup their hands once we're under the roof's edge. After a few deep breaths and a quick stretch, I take two quick steps and plant my foot in their hands, and they toss me up with all their might (which isn't much—if only I had my teammates here). For a second, I'm in midair, hands reaching out, and I'm sure the only view I'm gonna get is of the inside of my broken leg—

My hands clap down on the edge of the roof, and with one strong pull I yank myself up onto the slanted surface. After a few moments of breathing and getting used to my steep new terrain, I climb to my hands and knees and start creeping toward the peak of the rooftop.

Bingo: once I'm straddling the pointed top of the roof, I can see all of Kudus, and it would be a beautiful view if it didn't look like a city after the apocalypse. The buildings continue growing larger as they near the temple, and now I'm really face-to-face with the massive pointed buildings, all covered with sculptures and ridges like big stone artichokes. The streets are stretched out in every direction, totally empty except for the shape of the occasional cave zombie stalking slowly through the blackness and looking like blurry stick figures in my night vision. All around us hang huge ceiling spikes and pieces of white jagged crystal; for a second, it's like I'm at the very center of the cave.

“Remember, just look for
different
,” says Kendra.

There's not much “different” going on here. The city looks pretty dead, even from this height, and most of it is completely swallowed by dust from the past five centuries—

Hold on. What about that one?

“Ian!” hisses PJ. “Behind you!”

I turn just in time to see the cave zombie scuttling toward me, its fingernails tapping faintly on the slate beneath us, its backbone covered with one big flat slab of fungus, like it's got a spinal Mohawk. In a flash, I've ducked to one side of the roof and dropped to my belly, creeping backward down the slanted slope until my feet reach the edge and dangle over.

The zombie leans forward, its nostrils only a few inches from where my hands—one of my few body parts not disguised with zombie blood—just were, and sniffs loudly. Instantly, its bone fingers and toes begin tapping out a rhythm on the slate roof that gets responded to throughout the dead city . . . from nearby.