Skully continued to sweep his assault weapon, hitting his kill shots and sending bodies to the bottom of the shaft. But wave after wave kept coming, shapes and shadows leaping from side to side in fine acrobatic display, the undead closing on their position. When everyone was inside the crawlspace, Skully shot off a final burst and plunged inside. Since there was no way to close it from the crawlspace's interior, he knew it wouldn't take long to draw a tail.

Outlines of heads appeared around the edges of the opening, the undead having reached the hatchway and looking down the crawlspace, hissing.

"Coooooome tooo meeeeeeeee."

Then in a speed that was unnatural, they surged through the hatchway in waves.

"Meade!"

Meade was standing by the terminal next to Schott when he got the call from Funboy.

"Go."

"We're in the crawlspace! And these things are right on our heels!"

"At the end you'll find another hatchway that opens manually with a lever. It'll take you to a maintenance area that's closed off by a steel door. If you get beyond that door, then you can shut the door behind you and separate yourselves from them." He looked at Schott with an am-I-correct-about-this look.

Schott nodded.

Then Meade spoke into his lip mic. "How far behind you are these things?"

"They're right on our heels!" he said.

And he meant that literally.

Skully moved as fast as he could. However, Father Gardenzia was moving at a sluggish pace and holding up the line. "Let's go, Padre!"

"Coooooome tooo meeeeeeeee."

The dead were flocking to the living like bees to honey, with those in the fore part of the crawlspace raking their talons at Skully, who could feel the bony tips nicking at the soles of his boots.

"Padreeeee, mooooove!"

Father Gardenzia moved as quickly as he could by using his elbows to move him down the crawlspace, the old man struggling as a burning itch began to grip and enflame his backside.

"Let's go, Padre! Move your ass!"

"I'm moving as fast as I can," the priest said as he grimaced, then groaned while striving for the ground before him.

Since the area was tight, and Skully couldn't maneuver his assault weapon to fire off a few rounds behind him, he removed his holstered firearm, pointed the weapon at the shapes to his rear, and pulled the trigger in quick succession. The area filled with multiple flashes as bullets punched through the foreheads of the undead, perfect kill shots that put them down and plugged the crawlspace.

The undead who were suddenly stonewalled by the unmoving began to rip the blockade to pieces by tearing off an arm, and then a leg, the creatures burrowing through the obstacle by dismembering their own kind to get through, and discarded the limbs to the shaft below.

"Move!" yelled Skully.

When Funboy reached the end of the crawlspace he saw the lever on the door, pulled it, and pushed the hatch open. He immediately crawled from the hole, got to his feet, and aided the others by reaching in and dragging them from the narrow tube.

When Skully entered the maintenance area, Funboy closed the hatch and locked it, but it was Eriq who took inventory and realized that people were missing. Among those gone from the group were Lisa Millette, the Detail guard, and John Eldridge.

"Are there others?" Eriq asked Skully.

He nodded. "They were taken from the walls," he told him. "Plucked right off and taken topside."

Father Gardenzia moaned while leaning against the wall. His hand came away from his back all bloodied.

"What happened?" Skully asked him.

The priest found it hard to speak. "One of those things," he muttered. Then he showed his bloodied hand to show what he couldn't finish saying, the pain too great. He buckled to the floor, falling in such a way that his back was against the wall.

Eriq took to his side. When he looked back to ask for additional help, he was staring down the barrels of assault rifles. Skully and Funboy had neutral faces as they directed their aim at them.

"What the Hell are you doing?" Eriq asked, shielding the priest.

"He's been marked," said Funboy. "By them."

"We can help him."

"No," said Skully. "We can't. His life is slipping away from him as we speak. Now move away before he turns."

"Turns?"

Funboy nodded. "One of those things got one of our own," he said. "Marked him real good. He was dead within five minutes; minutes after that he was one of them. Now move away."

Eriq turned to the priest. "I can help you," he told him. "I'll carry you if I have to."

Father Gardenzia managed a light smile. "Like 'Footprints in the Sand,'" he struggled to say. "You'll carry me in my most trying times."

"No," he returned. "I'll carry you because I promised that I wouldn't leave you behind."

The priest raised a hand and placed it on Eriq's forearm. "They're right," he said weakly. "Something's happening. I can feel it." He then looked at him with eyes that were beginning to cloud over. The takeover was starting. "Take them, Eriq, and lead them."

"I can't leave without you."

"Yes, you can. I told you, if I should slow you down, then I would take myself out of the equation. More so . . . I know God has a place for me in His heart."

"I promised."

"It's not your choice. It's mine." Then, after looking at the remaining faces, he said: "Go. All of you. I'll slow them down."

"You know what they'll do to you," Eriq told him. It was more of a factual statement than a question.

Father Gardenzia maintained his weak smile, and nodded. "Yes," he said. "I know. But a moment of agony will bring me an eternity of peace. Now, you go on. All of you."

"Can't let you live, padre," stated Funboy. "What if you become one of them before they get here?"

The answer came when there was the sound of scratching on the other side of the hatch. The undead had worked their way through the impasse.

"Coooooome tooo meeeeeeeee."

And then pounding against the hatchway started.

"Coooooome tooo meeeeeeeee."

"You can kill me," said the priest. "Or I can give them what they want. To fulfill their need to feed and hold them up."

Skully and Funboy debated this. When Skully lowered his weapon, Funboy followed.

"Normally I'd say that I'd see you in Heaven, Padre, but I think I'm more suited for Hell."

Gardenzia raised his hand at Skully. "I won't argue with that," he told him. And then he dropped his hand over his stomach, feeling the urge to vomit. "Go," he said. "Now."

President Michelin and Sheena Tolbert backed to the steel door as the banging continued against the hatchway.

"As Father Gardenzia stated," said Michelin, "I believe we need to go. It appears that company is knocking at the door and wants to come in, and I, for one, do not wish to be here when they do."

Funboy and Skully turned to the metal door, which could be opened manually by turning a lever to the right, causing the bolts to withdraw from their circular sockets, unlocking it. Skully grabbed the lever and turned it. The metal bolts retracting, then swung the door open.

The corridor was empty.

And Meade and the comm center were less than sixty meters away.

They were almost home.

"Let's go, people," Skully said. "We're almost there."

Whereas Michelin exited the area immediately, Sheena took up beside Eriq, grabbed him gently by the arm, and lifted him back to a standing position.

Eriq looked down at Father Gardenzia with acute sadness, and Gardenzia picked up on it.

"It's all right, Eriq," he said feebly. "You're a good man. You've failed no one. And you did the only thing you could do. Now you must finish." Then he vomited quite explosively as a black and tarry substance spilled forth to the floor. The priest waved them away. Go!

When Eriq and Sheena entered the corridor, Skully, Funboy, and the president were gone.

Father Gardenzia hung on as long as he could. He raised a hand to grab the rosary, thumbed the beads, and prayed. Above his head the panel of the hatchway began to bow inward.

"Coooooome tooo meeeeeeeee."

And then a wave of nausea overwhelmed the priest once more, causing another bout of projectile vomiting of the poison that corrupted him. He could feel himself slipping. But not completely. There was some aspect of himself clinging on, while another part of him drifted away.

"Please . . . God."

His heart began to slow.

"Please."

His mind began to leave.

"Ple . . ."

Then the door to the hatchway exploded into the room and a wave of the undead poured through the opening like a tide released.

"Looo . . . rd."

It was Father Gardenzia's last statement, his last thought, as the undead converged on him like a pack of wild dogs.

Chapter Forty-Eight.

The behemoth stood along the edge of the chamber watching its kind pluck the living off the rungs, and then carry them to the Chem Lab where they gorged themselves on the meat of their quarries.

Lisa Millette, John Eldridge, and the Detail guard were remnants of their former selves. They had been torn apart, their limbs providing sustenance as the undead partook in the feast. Clothes had been stripped and set aside like rancid skin, as the real delicacy lay underneath.

But the behemoth did not participate. Its nourishment came in the power it possessed, as king of the palace called Mausoleum 2069.

Others feared it, respected it; therefore, it could live with the never-ending hunger as long as others recognized and understood its position in the hierarchy.

Power was food.

Shapes and shadows continued to leap between the walls in the shaft beneath it, working their way to those who were left.

Then it reared back, puffed out its massive chest, and bellowed-the call of a king as the surrounding landing shook beneath its cry.

As the sound echoed away and died off, the behemoth left the Chem Lab and moved to the lower levels.

No one, as far as it was concerned, was going to leave Mausoleum 2069 alive.

Chapter Forty-Nine.

After Eriq closed and locked the metal door of the Elevator Shack behind them, they could hear the hatchway door explode from the wall on the other side and the undead rush into the room.

Eriq was sickened, knowing that Father Gardenzia hung on long enough to be the bait that would give them time to run.