The Gates (Samuel Johnson vs. the Devil #1)(55)

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 The rest of the arm was quickly withdrawn.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.