Monster Island(42)

I followed suit. “So we’ll make multiple trips… or, I don’t know, maybe Osman will get his wish-maybe we’ll find some way to get theIntrepid free. God damn it, Ayaan! We can’t just abandon them.”

“Dekalb,” she said, much louder, and I turned to shush her but she had a different topic of discussion in mind. The side door of a dumpster had slid open and a naked dead man had wriggled out. Moving on all fours he came right up to us, his nose wriggling.

“He must smell the survivors,” I hissed at Ayaan. “Stay perfectly still.”

The dead man crawled closer and pulled himself stiffly up to his feet. In life he had suffered from male pattern baldness. He had tiny, beady eyes. He wavered before me for a long uncomfortable minute before bending forward at the waist and craning his neck out to give me a big snuffling sniff. He seemed to find my right hand fascinating.

It was only natural to look down and see what had excited him so. That was when I noticed the sheen of dampness on my palm. Sweat, on the outside of my glove.

Two more dead men slithered out of the dumpster. From down the street I saw movement-lots of movement.

“You shook the living one’s hand! You’re contaminated!” Ayaan screamed, her rifle strap getting tangled as she tried to get to the weapon. I looked from her back to the dead man as his talon-like fingers slashed down at me. They slid harmlessly off the Tyvek suit-I could feel the four hard points of contact (one for each of his fingernails) glance along my ribs-and then they caught on the seal of my glove.

At this point I tried to get away. Instead I got my legs tangled up in the baggy fabric of the hazmat suit and nearly fell down. The dead man gave a quick tug and my glove came off altogether, exposing my bare hand to the air.

My vaporproof integrity been compromised.

David Wellington - Monster Island





Monster Island





Chapter Nine


Long mylar banners flapped wildly between the columns of the faзade, their promotional messages bleached to illegibility by the sun. Snapping, snarling as the wind tore at them they were the only moving thing in sight. The Metropolitan Museum of Art stood high and alone in the mud of the Park, its massive doors wide open.

“I’ve got better things to do,” Gary said out loud. Afraid to go in. Noseless and Faceless made no reply to his assertion. “I need to find the girl who shot me. I’m hungry, too.” He didn’t turn away, though. Too many questions stacked up in his head.

Gary lead Noseless and Faceless up the long flight of steps to the doors and peered in for a moment, wondering if he really wanted to do this. The massive lobby soared upwards to three filthy skylights that provided a trace of illumination. Enough to see that the place was empty. Gary stepped into the cool dead air of the Museum and stared up at its arched and vaulted ceiling, at the grand staircase that lead upward from the far end of the lobby, at the gates that lead to the various exhibit rooms. This was hardly his first visit but without crowds of living tourists and patrons, without the squealing of bored children or the weary shouting of tour guides it seemed that every step he took made the entire stone edifice of the museum reverberate like a tomb.

He had more than a sneaking suspicion of where he should look for the Benefactor, though it didn’t make any sense. He turned to his right and headed through an abandoned security cordon. Noseless and Faceless followed behind, their feet shuffling on the flagstones. They passed through a long corridor lined with tomb paintings showing scenes of Egyptian daily life and then into a dark chamber lined with glass display cases.

One of the first things they came to was a case holding a mummy wrapped tight in linen bandages like an enormous cocoon. A golden mask stared up at them from the depths of the dark glass, its facial features composed in an expression of perfect serenity as it stared through Gary and into eternity. The enormous eyes seemed pools filled with placid understanding and a pleased acceptance of immortality. This couldn’t be the Benefactor, Gary was sure of it. He placed a hand on the glass.

The mask came crashing up into the top of the case, the pale limbless body thrashing below, the pupal form of something horrible.

Gary jumped back. This was impossible. Yet here it was, the mummy convulsing in its glass cage. Gary reached out across the frequency of death and felt the barest shadow of dark heat there-rage and anguish were the only things keeping the mummy going and even those were in short supply. Soon enough this creature was going to exhaust itself and succumb to entropy. Yet it was patently impossible for it to have any kind of afterlife at all. God! It wouldn’t stop thrashing! The gold mask had dented and flattened from the forceful beating against the glass, smearing and distorting the features.