The Living Dead 2 (The Living Dead, #2)(161)
The ladder went down and down, a descent long enough to raise fierce cramps in my arms and legs. It ended in a tunnel, dug deep into the earth of the tall river bank, lit by oil lamps set in niches in the earth walls. The red clay in the walls gave them a disturbingly organic quality, as though I was invited to go stumbling through the guts of some long-dead colossus, buried ages ago.
The tunnels were a maze, a warren of narrow inter-connecting passageways, and I soon lost all sense of place, or direction. I just lurched along, following the lit tunnels, sweating profusely in the close hot air. The lamps had to be for my benefit; dead men wouldn’t need them. It was no wonder the CIA man’s maps had been so vague about Major Kraus’ secret compound. He’d hidden it underground, to conceal just how big it was—hidden it underground, where only the dead men go. If the CIA had even suspected how big Kraus’ base was, how extensive his army, they would have sent the fly boys in long ago to burn the whole place back to bare unliving stone.
Clever Kraus.
Finally I came to the heart of the labyrinth, to the place of the monster, to the awful court of Major Kraus. There was no sign, no warning, no preparation. I just rounded a corner and found myself standing in a clean, brightly-lit earth chamber. There were rushes on the floor, shelves on the walls holding books and oil lamps and an assortment of presumably precious objects. There was a table, covered in maps and papers, and two surprisingly comfortable-looking chairs. But there was no clock anywhere, or even a calendar; nothing to tell you what time it might be, as though time had no meaning here, as though it had become irrelevant in this old, old place where the dead walked. I was in the Past now, in the deep Past, in the ancient primordial jungle, and that was all that mattered.
Kraus sat in a chair behind his table, hands clasped lightly on the tabletop before him, and he watched me with calm, amused eyes. He was alive. His chest rose and fell easily as he breathed, and his smile was real if thin. His simple vitality was like a shock of cold water in the face, breaking me out of the nightmare I’d been wandering through.
I studied the man I’d come so far to find. He was stick thin, without a spare ounce of fat on him, as though all such physical weakness has been burned away in some spiritual kiln. He had sharp, aesthetic features under close-cropped hair, and even though he was sitting perfectly still and at ease, he blazed with barely suppressed nervous energy. His spotlessly clean Army uniform hung loosely about him, as though it had once fitted a much larger man. His smile was slight but genuine, and his eyes were disturbingly sane.
I nodded slowly, to the man I’d been sent to kill. I never know what to say, on occasions like this. All my old certainties had been thrown down and trampled into the dirt, but still some small spark of stubborn pride wouldn’t allow me to blurt out the obvious question. Major Kraus just smiled and nodded back at me, as though he quite understood. I had no gun or knife. Dead hands had taken all my weapons from me, before I was allowed down the ladder into the underworld. I could still kill him with my bare hands. I’d been trained. But if I should fail…I didn’t want to die here. Not in this awful place, where the dead didn’t stay dead.
That would be terrible: to die, and still not know peace.
Kraus gestured easily for me to sit down. A calm, casual gesture, from a man who knew he held all the power in the room. Just for a moment, the major reminded me of the CIA man, back in Saigon. I sat down. Kraus smiled again, just a brief movement of the lips, revealing stained yellow teeth.
“Yes,” he said. “They’re dead. They’re all dead. The ones who brought you here, the ones who stand guard, and the ones I send out to kill my enemies. Dead men walking, every single one of them, torn from their rest, raised up out of their graves, and set to work by me. Everyone’s dead here, except me. And now, you. Tell me your name, soldier.”
“Captain Marlowe,” I said. “Torn from my cell, raised up from my court-martial, and sent here by the CIA to kill you, Major Kraus. They’re frightened of you. Of course, if they knew what you were really doing here…”
“There’s nothing they can do to stop me. My army is made up of men who are beyond fear, or suffering, who cannot be stopped by bullets or bombs or napalm. Zombies, Captain Marlowe. Old voodoo magic, from the deep south of America, where the really old ways are not forgotten. You needn’t worry, Captain, they won’t attack you. And they certainly won’t try and eat you, as they did in a cheap horror movie I saw, before I came out here. Into the real horror show, that never ends…. My men have no need to eat, any more than they need to drink, or piss, or sweat. They are beyond such human weaknesses now. They have no appetites, no desires, and the only will that moves them is mine. I give them purpose, for as long as they last. They are my warriors of the night, my weapons cast against an uncaring world, my horror to set against the horror men have made of this place.
“War…is too important to be left to the living.”
“Of course,” I said numbly. “The perfect soldiers. The dead don’t get tired, don’t get stopped by injuries, and will follow any order you give them, without question. Because nothing matters to them any more.”
“Exactly,” said Kraus, favoring me with another brief smile. “I just point them in the right direction, and let them roll right over whatever lies in their path. They destroy everything and everyone, like army ants on the march. Most people won’t even stand against them any more; they just turn and flee, as they would in the face of any other natural disaster. And if I should lose some men, through too much damage, I can always make up the numbers again, by raising up the fallen enemy dead.